Yet, this couldn't be further from the truth as this irritating movie is sure to perplex even the most die-hard noir and neo-noir enthusiasts. And it's especially troubling when you're faced with the ultimate realization that-- unlike the Rubik's Cube which I read that some people finally broke in frustration just to glue it back together to produce the full color sides-- in terms of Sleep, we're told right from the start by our self-important narrator that "clever types" will assume that things will make sense or mean something in the end but he's correct when he promises that we're "wrong." Therefore, it doesn't mean a damn thing... only to present a beautiful if nonsensical noir "dreamscape" in which the characters conspire, reveal, fight, fall in love, and inevitably bleed a whole lot.
Thus, The Perfect Sleep is more interested in building its labyrinthine puzzle with zero regard for logic or ensuring the audience will be able to find their way through the obstacle heavy maze, let alone actually worrying about whether or not we care about those involved in the drama.
Throughout it's filled with tongue-in-cheek ironic homage (or is it satire?) of the noir genre it pledges to love. Structured like it's the Bard's take of an Arthurian legend-- writer Anton Pardoe (who also stars as the unnamed narrator inexplicably dubbed "The Mad Monk") and director Jeremy Atler craft a gorgeously stylized and overwhelmingly disastrous yet well-intentioned mess via their bizarre polygamous marriage of the following: Sam Spade, Luc Besson, William Shakespeare, The Coen Brothers, The Polish Brothers, The Brothers Grimm, The Wachowski Brothers, Phillip Marlowe, Albert Camus, Michelangelo Antonioni, Claude Chabrol, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, David Fincher, Sigmund Freud, Luis Bunuel, Humphrey Bogart, Oscar Wilde, John Woo, Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, and Christopher Nolan... just to name a few references that catch the eye and ear of the observer within twenty minutes.

Throughout it's filled with tongue-in-cheek ironic homage (or is it satire?) of the noir genre it pledges to love. Structured like it's the Bard's take of an Arthurian legend-- writer Anton Pardoe (who also stars as the unnamed narrator inexplicably dubbed "The Mad Monk") and director Jeremy Atler craft a gorgeously stylized and overwhelmingly disastrous yet well-intentioned mess via their bizarre polygamous marriage of the following: Sam Spade, Luc Besson, William Shakespeare, The Coen Brothers, The Polish Brothers, The Brothers Grimm, The Wachowski Brothers, Phillip Marlowe, Albert Camus, Michelangelo Antonioni, Claude Chabrol, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, David Fincher, Sigmund Freud, Luis Bunuel, Humphrey Bogart, Oscar Wilde, John Woo, Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, and Christopher Nolan... just to name a few references that catch the eye and ear of the observer within twenty minutes.

While the plot-line is so convoluted and inexplicable, there's no way I can even manage to boil it down without the aid of CliffsNotes, the screenplay, access to the filmmakers, and more bandwidth-- essentially it centers on a man who returns "out of the past" after an absence of a decade.

Fond of staring at windmills for no particular reason other than-- like everything else in the movie-- it provides memorable eye candy for cinematographer Charles Papert, we learn that our protagonist is our overly chatty narrator Pardoe
Forever attacked by henchmen and left for dead-- bleeding profusely throughout the gory film-- we're not really sure why the narrator would give up the windmills for endless beatings but learn that ultimately his goal is to both seek revenge against a man who may very well be his father and save the life of his "princess" Porphyria (a luminous Roselyn Sanchez given little to do but pose lifelessly in clinging gowns like Gene Tierney's portrait that captivates Dana Andrews in Preminger's Laura).