Sleepwalk With Me

Directed by Mike Birbiglia and Seth Barrish

(Not rated)

***

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Translating an effective comic monologue into a feature-length movie is always tricky, said Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly. But comedian Mike Birbiglia has pulled off the feat with this “pitilessly self-aware” dramatization of what life is like for an aspiring stand-up performer who also happens to be a danger to himself when he sleepwalks. And it helps tremendously that Birbiglia’s co-star is the “lovely” Lauren Ambrose, playing the girlfriend Birbiglia’s character doesn’t deserve but won’t commit to. The star’s temperament eventually wins us over, said Richard Corliss in Time. Even when speaking directly into the camera about his various problems, he comes across not as self-involved but as “a lost soul who happens to be surrounded by people as fascinated with his commitment problem as he is worn down by it.” This “small, likable” movie is really “several things loosely wound together,” said Stephen Holden in The New York Times. If you’re not moved by the love story or the “unvarnished portrait” of the stand-up’s Darwinian struggles, stick around for the “visual pizzazz” of the dream sequences.