Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

framptonhollis In the early 90's, Richard Linklater gave us the amusingly quirky philosophical comedy "Slacker". In the 2000's, when Linklater was a much more established filmmaker, he semi-updated this older work, but, instead of focusing on the daytime that defined "Slacker", Linklater seems to have trapped "Waking Life" in the midst of the night. Even when daylight floods the lens, our protagonist and guide through his own mind is as aware as we are that he is trapped within his own dream...and the dream layers are stacking up. He awakens only to be stranded in another subsection of his growing, energetic subconscious, and many serious discussions of and questions concerning deep philosophical thought are explored in depth. The tone is certainly more serious and less self mocking than "Slacker", but the entertainment value is still there, and many little moments of clever comedy are perfectly placed throughout (a talking monkey, an uproariously absurd encounter between the protagonist and an eccentric clerk he believes to have seen earlier in the dream); however, there is also plenty of fuel and food for extreme existentialist thought dealing with death and, even more prominently and uniquely, dreams. Is life a dream? Is life not life, but really death? Is anyone really here, or is it all just one's mind? Questions, questions, questions...no real answers. Moments, swirling, moving....movements...the whole film flows like a river, it feels like an actual DREAM! There are reoccurring themes, ideas, and faces, but there is no real narrative, at least not in a remotely conventional sense. It is scene after scene of discussion and discourse, characters come and go out of nowhere, some even die outrageously, while others take on new personalities and minds as the tale trails along...there are appearances from professors, philosophers, doctors...the likes of Ethan Hawke, Alex Jones (?!), and Steven Soderbergh have brief splashes of screen time in which they spew brief speeches jam packed with rigorous insight into all sorts of topics...stories are told, political rants are screamed, theories are deeply analyzed, love is discussed, hate is expressed...and it all culminates in one of the greatest, most totally chilling and thought provoking monologues I've ever heard, performed with grace, humor, realism, emotion, and intelligence by the man behind the camera himself, Richard Linklater.

paulg-67221 This film suffers the same problem as Crash (the 2004 film not the Cronenberg film, I haven't seen that yet), every single scene is about the exact the same thing. In this film's case it is philosophy. The concept was interesting but it would have been much better if the filmmakers had just filmed philosophy professors and rotoscoped it in a way to make the footage visually interesting. A massive problem with the film is that characters discuss philosophy and are never heard of again. If you are going to make a film about a single subject and not offer anything else at least make it a short film. Although in Before Sunrise the characters did chat about philosophy, they also talked about love and themselves allowing us to get to know them as people. At least Before Sunrise had a love story (offering more than Waking Life) and was visually interesting because of the location (the rotoscoping in this film looks ugly, the rotoscoping in A Scanner Darkly is much better but still a little off-putting, luckily that film actually has a plot so I can forgive it).I give the film 5/10 because the concept is good and did introduce me to some interesting ideas but sadly the film offered very little else and I don't think I'll ever watch it again. A pity, I wanted to enjoy this film because of Linklater but I couldn't.Edit: I have decided to rate this movie a 3/10. This is because it doesn't feel like a movie, it's just scenes tacked onto one another without much connecting them (if anything). (04/09/2016)

prince grover Wonderful and whole new form of animation by Linklater. Filming real people and then making animations is an amazing idea. The animations takes us to another dimension which a typical movie can not do. About the script, very insightful and thought provoking movie. It gives a whole different way of how we perceive ourselves in society and how society thinks about individuals. It has given a few examples of trippy thought experiments. The movie has shed a philosophical light on lucid dreaming. Basically, it has shown 1 hour, 40 minutes of pure philosophy. A good try to cover years of philosophical ideas into few minutes of movie.Linklater has given a lot of real life references and some from his own previous movies.

braddugg A movie that begins with the line "Dream is Destiny" ought to be compelling and thought provoking and so that's what Waking Life is.It's a hugely compelling and thought provoking movie without doubt and it makes us ask very very poignant questions that we have even forgot asking ourselves or anyone around. As we grow and get lost in the crowd we tend to keep away from the philosophy of life and seek only materialistic things, the money, the name, the prosperity while our purpose of existence and purpose of doing something still remains in question. We tend not to do a few things as we grow up due to fear and few things remain undone because of our laziness which essentially means that we are taking life for granted we are becoming complacent and certain of a tomorrow and even tomorrow we might not do it. That's just a part of this movie where i's said. There are many dialogues and of course this movie is nothing but dialogue driven, acting scope is minimal as it's a love action movie that makes you feel at first a bit bizarre coz it's neither animated nor a normal film and we are not used to this kind of presentation. If anything then it's editing and the animation that I restrict the technical departments to with art direction that will help what has to be there in the scene figuring out and all are apt. But I love the dialogue more than anything else. Be it a conversation of a couple, a interview on TV or in theatre, a monologue in jail, they are so prominent and one after another they keep the mind on the run and if there are questions that will run through the mind as we see it as ' what are we doing?,what are we here for? what is life after all?' I never get even for a split second what is the plot of the movie, what is it's story who are the characters and what are their motives, these things are not important here.It's terribly difficult to comprehend what it feels like after watching this movie except that as and when I watch it I just feel so happy and relieved but still questions keep boggling. I am very grateful to Richard Linklater the writer director of the movie for giving this film. It's one of the best gifts I had. It's 5/5 for the most thought provoking movie ever that I saw. I saw it precisely 5 times all my life and will surely watch many more times as this movie has to be experienced and can't be just seen and forgot, you need to keep asking the questions.