Themes: Mistaken Identities, Down on Their Luck, Brief Encounters
Main Cast: David Suchet, Lisa Harrow, Jared Harris
Release Year: 1997
Country: US
Run Time: 92 minutes
Plot
Writer-director Jonathan Nossiter's first feature film is a moody exploration of assaults upon, and shifts in, personal identity. The movie's action all takes place on a Sunday in a poor section of the New York City borough of Queens. Oliver (David Suchet) is a newly homeless middle-aged man who was downsized out of his job as a mid-level functionary at a computer corporation and lost his wife and family because of his employment troubles. Out walking in the borough, Oliver collides with Madeleine Vesey (Lisa Harrow), an out-of-work British actress who is in the process of breaking up with her American husband, Ben (Larry Pine). Madeleine mistakes Oliver for Matthew Delacorta, a famous film director, and Oliver goes along with the mistake, hoping that it will help him to escape his misery. Madeleine hopes that she can make an impression that will land her a film role, so she invites her new friend up to her apartment. When Oliver tells her his life story, she mistakes it for an invented movie plot because Madeleine lives her life in a fantasy world, pretending reality is a film. After the two lost souls have sex without emotion, Ben shows up. He tells Oliver that his recent open-heart surgery wounds were caused by a knife attack from Madeleine. Oliver leaves as the estranged couple argues, but he returns to retrieve his precious winter coat, and he becomes further entangled in the fantasy of a new identity. Sunday won the Grand Jury prize at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Review
The urban encounter between two lost souls always runs the risk of descending into maudlin observations about the essential loneliness of the human condition. Director Jonathan Nossiter and James Lasdun's script manages to avoid that trap, in part because it adds the elements of mistaken identity and wishful fantasy thinking to the mix. David Suchet, who reportedly gained 49 pounds to play the role of Oliver, a homeless former corporate manager, and Lisa Harrow, the estimable Australian actress who looks like she put on considerable weight to play Madeleine, the delusional actress, are not what you'd call the sleekest romantic pairing in screen history. But what the writers have concocted for them -- Oliver playing along with Madeleine's befuddlement to get some measure of comfort on a cold day in New York, Madeleine desperately reaching out to anyone who can pull her failing career together -- is absorbing material and well played. Less effective are the protracted sequences in the men's shelter where Oliver stays (the players are a mix of professional actors like Jared Harris and real homeless men) and Larry Pine's role as Ben, Madeleine's loony husband. The film's other strength is capturing the feel of its title day in a big bad cold city; for a man out of work and with no home, Sunday, says Oliver, is a day "when you get up in the morning you can't wait till it's time to go to bed." ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Joe Grifasi - Scottie Elster; Henry Hayward - Sam; Larry Pine - Ben Vesey; Kevin Thigpen - David; Arnold Barkus - Andy; Jimmy Broadway; Fran Capo; Chen Tsun Kit; Spencer Paterson; Joe Sirola - Subalowsky; Bahman Soltani - Abram; Yeong Joo Kim; Willis Burks II - Selwyn
Credit
Stephen Beatrice - Art Director, Mali Finn - Casting, Kathryn Nixon - Costume Designer, Laura Somers - First Assistant Director, Jonathan Nossiter - Director, Madeleine Gavin - Editor, Jed Alpert - Executive Producer, Henry Buhl - Executive Producer, George Pezyos - Executive Producer, D.J. Paul - Executive Producer, Jonathan Nossiter - Songwriter, Deana Pini Sidney - Production Designer, John Foster - Cinematographer, Michael Barrow - Cinematographer, Jamie Silverstein - Cinematographer, Andrew Fierberg - Producer, Amy Hobby - Producer, Kara Cressman - Set Designer, Neil Riha - Sound/Sound Designer, James Lasdun - Screenwriter
Sunday is a 1997independent film. Set in Queens, a borough of New York City, it is a dark comedy about an unemployed, homeless IBM functionary mistaken by an ageing actress for a famous film director. The film was directed by Jonathan Nossiter. The screenplay is an adaptation by Nossiter and James Lasdun or Lasdun's own short story "Ate, Memos or the Miracle" (published in his collection of stories, Three Evenings). The two would later collaborate again on Signs & Wonders.
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