Sleeper is a 1973 American science fiction comedy film directed by and starring Woody Allen, who co-wrote it with Marshall Brickman. Parodying a dystopic future of the United States in 2173, the film involves the misadventures of the owner of a health food store who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200 years later in an ineptly led police state. Contemporary politics and pop culture are satirized throughout the film, which includes tributes to the classic comedy of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin. Many elements of notable works of science fiction are also paid tribute to, or parodied.

Plot

Miles Monroe is a jazz musician and owner of the Happy Carrot health-food store in New York City's Greenwich Village. He walks into the hospital in 1973 for a routine ulcer operation that goes wrong, leaving him relegated to 200 years of anonymous cryopreservation. Two scientists in 2173 illegally revive him. They are members of an underground rebellion at odds with the police state the United States had become after the massive destruction caused when "a man named Albert Shanker got a hold of a nuclear warhead." It is ostensibly ruled by a dictator known only as "The Leader", and about to implement a secret plan known as the "Aries Project". The rebels hope to use Miles as a spy to infiltrate and derail it, as he is the only member of the dystopian society without a known biometric identity.

Awards