This film comes from the people who brought you The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But where The Science of Sleep is nowhere near as slickly executed or star-studded as the preceding Oscar-grabbing blockbuster, this new film retains its own magical charm.

The storyline is elliptical in the sense that for all the brilliant dream sequences and overlapping realities, not much happens per se. A somewhat hapless Stéphane(the brilliant Gael Garcia Bernal) moves into a new apartment and promptly falls in love with his arty neighbour, the somewhat aloof Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg).

Most of the action takes place in Stéphane's head, as he seeks a way to explain his affections to himself and to Stéphanie. The results are always quirky, and with more than a few hilarious moments inbetween. The office staff where Stéphane finds new employment provide a lot of laughs with their ineptitude and constant disavowals to their boss's accusations of homosexuality. When Stéphane writes Stéphanie a love letter in his sleep and later shoves it under her door, only to immediately want to retrieve it with a coathanger, the humour comes over well rounded and beautifully sincere. Added to the fact that for half the film Stéphane is specifically pretending not to be Stéphanie's neighbour, and you have a playful tone that underlies the whole surrealist adventure.

The film is triligual, related by the characters in French, English, and Spanish, adding to the cross-colonisation of dreams, reality, and love at the movie's woollen-soft core. This is a love story, though so far beyond the bounds of cliche, it feels entirely fresh and original.

With cotton ball clouds, living toys and crazed dream sequences that actually seem to capture the unnerving sensations of dreams, this film is sure to enchant and captivate. It is probably unlike anything you've ever seen before, and worth watching for that alone. The fact that it's a wonderfully realised experience makes The Science of Sleep something to cherish.

The Exploding Boy 2007