What Really Happens to Lucy at the End of Sleeping Beauty? The meaning of the film Sleeping Beauty (2011), the plot summary, the explanation of the ending, similar films.
Country: Australia
Genre: Thriller, Drama, Melodrama
Year of production: 2011
Director: Julia Lee
Cast: Emily Browning, Rachel Blake, Ewen Leslie, Peter Carroll, Chris Haywood
The film Sleeping Beauty can seem boring, which confirms the film’s rather low rating. There is no famously twisted dynamics, intrigue and other components of a spectacular movie. Even nudity does not save, because the film is difficult to attribute to erotic, although it was filmed in this context. However, if you understand the meaning of the film “Sleeping Beauty”, the picture seems to be transformed, and begins to play with new colors. However, the director’s idea is hidden so deeply that a detailed analysis of the picture is necessary to understand it.
The plot of the film “Sleeping Beauty”
The content of the film itself is fairly linear. The main character in Sleeping Beauty is Lucy. She is a student and a rather infantile person who, like many students, needs money. The girl’s mother is a chronic alcoholic, she works as a dispatcher in an obscure service of astrological forecasts, so one cannot count on the help of her mother. Lucy works part-time in one company as a copyist, in the evenings she works as a waitress and a cleaner in some eatery. At night she hangs out in clubs, does not shun promiscuity.
One day, she stumbles upon an ad in the student newspaper for a high-paying part-time job. At the interview, Lucy is offered a job as a waitress in an elite private club for wealthy clients. She must wait at the table, work only in the linen that the company gives, adhere to the principle “the client is always right.”
At the same time, the employer also gives certain guarantees. For example, although the work is erotic in nature, it does not provide for any penetrations. The money is good, but the contract can be terminated at any time, no contract is drawn up. The manager of the institution, Clara, honestly warns about this. She also advises the girl to treat money responsibly and not to consider it as the main and permanent source of income. Live here and now, spend your earnings on solving pressing problems, for example, pay for your studies.
The first evening at work goes great. Lucy, who is called Sarah at work, delivers drinks to the moneybags. An ordinary secular evening, if you do not take into account that all the servants consist of half-naked girls. After several such part-time jobs, career growth happens, which Clara spoke about at the interview.
Sarah Lucy now plays the role of a doll. She is given a hard drug and sleeps through the night. At this time, rich old people have fun with her body as they want. The rules are the same: no penetrations and marks on the girl’s body. The work is paid very generously.
Lucy now does not need money, rents an apartment in the center and is not upset about the fact that she was fired from the office. However, the girl awakens interest. She wants to know what happens to her at night. To find out, Lucy gets a hidden camera. During the next call to the mansion, she asks Clara to tell about what they are doing to her. She refuses, citing the fact that she does not want to create pretexts for blackmailing clients. Complete confidentiality is maintained here.
After drinking tea with sleeping pills, Lucy goes to bed. Before falling asleep, she sets up a camera in the room. One of the mansion’s clients also drinks the tea offered by Clara. As a result, in the morning the manager finds the lifeless body of an old man and a sleeping girl. She wakes up Lucy, she screams, seeing a corpse next to her. At the end of the film Sleeping Beauty, footage from the installed camera is shown, where the girl sleeps on the bed next to the dead old man.
Explanation of the ending of the movie “Sleeping Beauty”
The short description does not allow to understand the hidden meaning of the finale. This must be seen. The ending is only the apogee of the story, but here it is interesting to observe the transformation of the character of the girl herself. She perfectly understands what happens to her at night, but does not worry about it at all. However, it is these nightly adventures that awaken her interest. Throughout the film, “Lucy” is indifferent to everything. However, when she began to play the role of a “porcelain doll”, she felt an interest not only in work, but in all these manipulations with a sleeping body.
During her commute to work, she gently touches a sleeping woman, as if trying out emotions she had never experienced before. That’s why she gets a hidden camera. The meaning of the ending of the film “Sleeping Beauty” is revealed in the scream of the awakened girl.
The simplest explanation is that Lucy is afraid of a corpse. Agree, this is a strong shock, waking up in the morning, to see a lifeless body in bed at your side. However, this is unlikely. Lucy was indifferent to everything throughout the film. Interest woke up only in Sarah. In this vein, the explanation for the ending may lie in the fact that, having shown curiosity for the first time, our heroine did not learn anything. All that she saw in the footage was only herself sleeping and the old man lying next to her.
Meaning of Sleeping Beauty
Unlike the ending, the essence of the film is much deeper. The meaning of the picture very accurately conveys its title. Lucy is the sleeping beauty. Her whole life is like a roulette wheel. Lucy doesn’t care what happens to her. She seems to be playing with life or seeing it in a dream. According to the director, her work is a small study on the indifference of the younger generation. And Julia Lee coped with this task simply superbly.
The character of Lucy is very accurately revealed at the very beginning of the film. In a nightclub, random acquaintances throw a coin, playing out which of them will sleep with a girl. This fact does not bother Lucy, she only specifies the terms of this transaction, and also with the help of a coin, the time of intercourse is played out. Casual sex with a random person does not bother Lucy. She treats it indifferently, taking it for granted. It is in this character trait of the girl that the key to the meaning of Sleeping Beauty lies.
At the same time, Lucy has a friend, but the relationship in this pair is incomprehensible. The guy is seriously ill or trying to get rid of drug addiction. The director does not explain this point, but there is not much point in this either. Here Lucy seems to be playing with the family. She comes to visit, she and her friend watch movies, talk about kissing. At the same time, the guy seems to be going to marry a girl who helps him get out.
At first glance, a complete idyll, but it collapses, one has only to look at the actions of Lucy herself. Not only does she continue to walk around nightclubs and roam the beds of her friends, she acts very strangely with her first salary. She promises to help her boyfriend financially, while simply burning one bill, looking thoughtfully into the flames. The interpretation of this action may be as follows: Lucy is not interested in money, she does not make plans for the future. However, as such, it does not have a future either.
She found a job she loves, where she can be herself. Here she does not need to pretend, just sleep is enough. However, according to the meaning of the film, she is just another toy for rich old people. The girl is presented at buffet tables. She is dressed differently from the rest, she is given more attention. After that, all the members of this elite club take turns sleeping with her. Considering that the old people who have made fun of her no longer return, it can be assumed that Sarah’s work will end with the members of the club.
However, what is the meaning of this strange entertainment of elderly gentlemen? Based on the interpretation of the film, it can be assumed that a very unusual death is practiced in this community. The very first grandfather, who had fun with the sleeping Lucy, takes a lethal dose of sleeping pills from the hands of the manager and peacefully passes away next to the charming girl.
Considering that Clara was not surprised to see the body in the morning, one can assume that this is a normal practice here. Alternatively, Lucy herself realized this. It is simply an attribute of death for the oligarchs who have decided to say goodbye to life in a more beautiful way. Her work here is done.
Movies similar to Sleeping Beauty
- House of Tolerance (France, 2010). Love and hate, sorrows and fleeting joy. It is with these emotions that the closing brothel in Paris lives.
- Bedroom (Japan, 1992). An unusual club where you can do anything with sleeping prostitutes. Suddenly, the girls begin to die one after another.
- Eyes Wide Shut (USA, 1999). A sexual odyssey of one married couple, where serious problems are hidden behind the facade of well-being.
- Call student (France, 2010). 19-year-old Laura agrees to become a student for “tender moments”, unaware of what a fleeting meeting with a 57-year-old womanizer will lead to.
- Young and beautiful (France, 2013). Isabelle meets random men in hotels. However, the girl does this not for the sake of money. What drives her, and how will she act when one of her clients dies?
Lucy was a package postmarked for how to end your life, taking chances with drugs unknown to her, drugs she snorted knowingly before making sex partner choices on a coin flip, or showing her state of despair by burning her first big weirdo underwear tits table serving – desperately needed money. All indications in the end, add up to having give up on life.
Lucy symbolically and maybe did actually get staged to die with the old man after initially waking up to a psychological break seeing the dead old man. Note the non reaction by the madam regarding Lucy’s frantic reaction to lying next to a dead man. The dagger of death came at the point from the death of the younger bird-man who gave up by overdosing on pills after attempted recovering from something. Lucy simply gave up.
She never left that house. She may have been the “old oriental sacrifice” requested by the old man, taking something or someone as a death companion. Real life is very very similar. Put yourself out there for weird people to take advantage you, happens every day.