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This drama paints a striking portrait of Reggie (Julian Shatkin), a wealthy and neglected twelve-year-old prodigy with the maturity of a middle-aged man; and Eleanor ( Leighton Meester), a broke ex-musician in her twenties recently out of work, boyfriend and home, who lands a job as Reggie's au pair for the summer in Manhattan while his mother (Debra Messing) travels overseas. Written and directed by Frank Whaley, produced by Uri Singer, and breathtaking cinematography by James Jones.

This film took a very different, almost romantic approach with a charming, artistic, sensitive yet domineering child rather than the traditional spoiled brat who hates the nanny. The two hit it off right away. Eleanor naturally accepts his maturity and treats him as an equal when she realizes that trying to be the grown-up in the relationship is pointless in the company of a genius. In many ways, Reggie takes better care of her than she does of him.

The conflict doesn't stem from the relationship between these two unlikely friends, but from their personal lives. This could have been why it felt a bit lacking in conflict overall, because no major problems arise between the two main characters. However, this blossoming friendship is where the unexpected bulk of the humor comes from, with witty and surprising dialogue between these very different but equally troubled characters learning how to co-exist.

Several things were set up or talked about that were never paid off, which underplayed the conflict and there wasn't enough of a resolution. Rather than showing how the characters have grown or been changed and strengthened by one another, the whole final act kind of feels like a montage of shots of them missing each other while trying to go back to their previous lives.

Very good acting, Julian Shatkin is phenomenal, the film is worth watching for his performance alone; not to take away from the rest of the cast. Leighton Meester is very natural in her role, Debra Messing is quite funny as an unjustifiably stressed-out woman whose normal routine includes going to the spa and on exotic vacations; and Georgia Ximenes Lifsherr is hilarious as Eleanor's best friend Silvia. Even Eleanor's parents who, while not in much of the film, manage to stay memorable with their hostile quirks. We weren't very impressed with Billie Joe Armstrong's performance as Dennis, Eleanor's boyfriend. His style was pretty over-the-top and childlike, very "acty," not terribly believable. Overall film score: 9/10. Here's the breakdown:

– Story: 8/10 — Characters: 10/10 — Acting: 9/10 (would be 10/10 if not for Billie Joe's performance) — Cinematography: 10/10 — Soundtrack: 10/10 — Most Lacked: Conflict & Character Arc

When Brooklyn waitress Eleanor has a sudden break-up with her fractious boyfriend, she needs a new job and roof over her head as soon as possible. She lucks out finding a position as live-in nanny to precocious, privileged Reggie who lives in a luxurious apartment on the upper west side of NYC. Both characters deal with their dysfunctional family backgrounds by maintaining reserved exteriors, and this unusual small-scale film portrays the developing relationship between a blue-collar young woman and the neglected twelve year old.

The story begins slowly and continues at a leisurely pace throughout. Although nothing very dramatic occurs, their bond gradually deepens as they spend time with one another and discover a common interest in music. Leighton Meester and Julian Shatkin give nicely observed performances in the lead roles, but the script doesn't give them anywhere especially interesting to go, although there are some emotional ripples when Reggie accompanies Eleanor back to her upstate home due to a family crisis. Their story eventually arrives at an understated conclusion.

"Like Sunday, Like Rain" (2014 release; 105 min.) brings the story of Eleanor and Reggie. As the movie opens, we see Reggie wake up and start his day. Reggie is a 12 yr. old wunderkind who plays the cello and is a math-whiz, but he's also living a pretty lonely existence even if in a well-to-do environment. His mom is having a fit because the live-in nanny just quit (or was forced to leave the country because of her visa). In a parallel story, we also get to know Eleanor, in her early 20s. She also just woke up, realizing her boyfriend never came home the night before. It's not long before Eleanor breaks up and moves out, and in a subsequent confrontation by her ex-boyfriend at her work, she is fired from her waitressing job. In desperation, Eleanor goes to a temp agency for nannies, and as luck would have it, she is hired as the new live-in nanny for Reggie. As this point we're not even 15 min. into the movie but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest movie written and directed by actor Frank Whaley. This time he chooses to bring the story of an unlikely but blossoming friendship between Reggie and Eleanor. Reggie needs Eleanor just as much as she needs him, in fact she may need Reggie more, as she is down on her luck, with an annoying boyfriend, an ailing father and a strained relationship with the rest of her family. Beware: this movie is not for anyone in a hurry, and there is no major plot to speak of, so if you don't like a movie where there's lot of talking and little or no action, do yourself a favor and watch something else. It is a darn shame that this movie is rated "R" (the F word is used twice, and it wasn't even necessary and didn't make the movie any more "authentic"), as a key potential audience (the 14 to 17 yr. old) is probably not going to get to see this now. As to the acting performances, both leads (Leighton Meester as Elanor and Julian Shatkin as Reggie) give stellar performances and I hope we'll see more of them in due course. However, Billie Joe Armstrong (yes, he of Green Day) is completely miscast as Eleanor's boyfriend (for one, he is WAY too old, and for another, his acting skills are lacking). Also, there is a fair amount of classical music in the movie, so if that's not your thing, beware. I quite liked the classical segments, and the overall musical score, courtesy of Ed Hardcourt. Bottom line: not knowing much of anything about this movie before seeing it, I was pleasantly surprised by this and charmed from start to finish.

This movie was shot in New York 2 years ago, and shown at various film festivals last year. Why it's taken this long to appear in the theaters, I have no idea. I recently saw this at the Silverspot Cinema in Naples, FL. The matinée screening where I saw this at was attended okay but not great. If you are ready for something other than the usual "Furious 7" or "Ant-Man" fare that Hollywood is sending our way, this movie might just do the trick for you. "Like Sunday, Like Rain" is definitely worth checking out, be it in the theater or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray.

10/10 Masterpiece. Some are calling this melancholy, but I think bittersweet is a better word. Above all, it's a story about a 12 year-old music prodigy being played by a c. 12 year-old acting prodigy. As good as child acting has gotten, few if any could have pulled this off as well. What's the significance of 12? It's that age where you're as mature as you're going to get before the onset of puberty. But what if your emotional maturity and profound awareness outstrip your physical growth? It's about resigning yourself to your solitude, until.... The result is a bittersweet gulf between two otherwise kindred souls. This isn't about dramatic friction, it's about something distinctive, enigmatic and fleeting. It's like playing a beautiful tune on a cello in an empty swimming pool with good acoustics. It's like Sunday, like rain.

Maybe the best "child" performance ever.

This is such a beautiful simple movie , i loved every second of it and i really didn't want it to end. the casting is amazing that little boy is really talented and Leighton Messter is one of the best actresses out there. It's a must see movie. The movie will keep you absorbed and interested until the end even though it is really slow pased. It is also beautifully written the script was amazing it was like wise poetry in some way. this movie goes straight to my all time favourites and i will be rewatching it as soon as i can. the main soundtrack "like Sunday like Rain" is also amazing such beautiful sad music that goes perfectly with the kid's and the Nanny's current situation. absolutely beautiful.

17 February 2016. There are reasons this movie might be an "eight" instead of a "seven," but there still remains the inherent fundamental weakness in its very attempt at qualitative greatness. What so great about this movie is its avoidance of the pretentious, mainstream dramatic plot outline that directs the pacing and acting and plot of the entire story. Like Sunday, Like Rain dismisses such pablum for an excellent independent style movie narrative. Yet it is the very attempt of this focus on independence that part of the story seems to lose. Unlike Lost In Translation (2003) where the focus is almost required by the story to be exclusively on two people, Frank Whaley directs his own script with a number of characters several of which seem to have some importance to the story but don't seem to get be developed very well nor tied up very well. In short a number of characters are introduced and them dumped. With Room (2015), the nature and the focus on two primary characters being the essence of the story can command the entire movie when necessary. Even years before Richard Dreyfus's Mr. Holland's Opus (1995), his portrayal in a multi-layered duo character movie The Competition (1980) regardless Dreyfus's worse actor award notwithstanding review how consistently engrossing and emotively appealing a movie can be.

I almost turned this off after the first 15 minutes. There was some truly horrible acting, primarily from bit parts, but the story soon focuses on the Nanny (Eleanor, played by Leighton Meester) and the boy (Reggie, played by Julian Shatkin), and things begin to improve. It also took a while for young Julian Shatkin to grow on me, but eventually his nearly emotionless portrayal opens up with more facial expression and age appropriate gestures. He seems to take on more personality as the chemistry between him and Ms. Meester grows. The acting continues to be unbalanced, mostly when Reggie is acting so precocious, which is when lines are delivered with the least emotion.

My biggest complaint about the movie is that the cello scenes weren't staged better. Mr. Shatkin shouldn't bear the weight of portraying a "cello prodigy" in those scenes since he doesn't play the cello. The music is described as "beautiful" in the dialogue, but I don't see it. In one scene the camera stays on Eleanor as she ascends a flight of stairs with music in the soundtrack, but there is no shot of Reggie playing. For all we know, she's just exploring the house, not following the "beautiful" sound of the boy playing. How about some close ups of a cello being played well, by a real cello player with young hands?

Julian Shatkin did quite well playing a preteen savant named Reggie, considering his age, but writer/director, Frank Whaley, let him down. The role would have been more believable had Whaley given him a wider emotional range (and, in my view, it's the director's job to coax the writer into writing each character equally well - funny that the director did not have that conversation with himself as the writer!). From the start of the movie, the boy's isolation is palpable as his mother plans to leave him on travels. (Debra Messing plays her well, but the part is limited and is only consequential in that it shows how emotionally deprived Reggie was.) He "snaps" at his friend at one point, as he put it, but compared to the frustrations of dealing with adults and children who rarely understand him or his choices, there was not enough emotion, particularly not enough anger. I feel his character loses a certain amount of aliveness because of it.

In great contrast, Whaley was able to figure out Eleanor's (the nanny's) emotions, and Leighton Meester was in turn able to play those emotions brilliantly.

After the movie ended, I attempted to flash back to moments where Leighton had not played her role authentically, and could not find any such moment. That's how great her acting is. The fierceness of her initial confrontation with her boyfriend was placed into context by our understanding of her family that followed. A beautiful young woman emerges from the initial mess, and we quickly find that she possesses advanced maternal instincts toward Reggie, supporting him exactly as he is, with all his awkward brilliance, even as he bends her to his wishes along the way. Her character is no pushover and she has her own plans, caring for her own soul as well.

Overall, the film is well worth watching, as it will move you, and you may even understand what children need a bit better. They need love. Leighton Meester clearly has that love in her, and her performance is a credit both to her and to Whaley. Yes, both actress and writer/director got Eleanor exactly right.

Like Sunday, Like Rain, at first, focuses on the lives of two separate individuals in Brooklyn, one of whom, a twentysomething woman named Eleanor (Leighton Meester) who breaks up with her obnoxious, rock-star boyfriend (Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong) and moves in with her friend, and the other, a cynical, twelve-year-old prodigy named Reggie (Julian Shatkin), who, despite so young and full of talents, is skeptical of all aspects of life. Their paths cross when Eleanor's boyfriend costs her the only job she's ostensibly ever held down, a barista position at a local coffee shop, leading her to accept a job babysitting Reggie while his mother is out of town.

Reggie is about as cynical as a sixty-five-year-old war veteran is about the current state of America and that's putting it mildly. Still largely treated like a child by his own mother and only finding temporary companionship in his maid, Reggie spends his days in his castle-of-a-home playing the cello, composing, or simply indulging in his own thoughts, all things he taught himself how to do. Reggie's misery doesn't stem from any one certain circumstance; he's adopted cynicism as the religion of his life, remaining skeptical of most people he meets in addition to writing things off immediately without trying anything new.

Eleanor is the first soul in a long time to really resonate with him, mainly because she finds him interesting despite all the bottled up frustration he holds inside. Thankfully, Eleanor has the privilege of being played by Leighton Meester, a lovely and often overshadowed young actress in the face of similar actresses like Brie Larson and Rosemarie DeWitt. Meester's strengths here largely stem from her ability to be a natural screen presence, never asserting her character in a dramatic light, and Shatkin - in one of his first film roles - has the exquisite ability to perform long, sometimes complicated, monologues about his opinions that would even make a seasoned performer stumble over their words.

The film was written and directed by Frank Whaley, a solid character actor and an even better director; this is his first film since the unseen and unfairly bashed New York City Serenade in 2007. This particular effort seems to catch Whaley in a more contemplative mood, one that features the complications and insights of the world being defined by a prepubescent teenager that feels he has figured the world out. With that in mind, one can tell this is less a realistic film and more a "what if?" kind of film. Reggie doesn't speak nor act like any twelve-year-old I believe to exist (maybe sixteen-year-old, but not a twelve-year-old), and it's hard to believe these kind of profound bouts of cynicism in life would begin earlier than high school or college.

Yet, Whaley himself might even recognize that Reggie's cynicism is a bit premature for his age, and with that, might want us to focus more on the chemistry or the smooth flow of the dialog in the film. Consider the scene where Eleanor and Reggie lie on the grass, with Reggie doing something he probably doesn't do with people too often and that's open up about his true feelings towards Eleanor on a friend level. Whaley makes it so these scenes of chemistry and a young man coming to terms with how his attitude polarizes people make it so that the lack of dialog-realism doesn't become such a distraction.

Like Sunday, Like Rain doesn't appear to have the kind of long-term effect Whaley's other films have, such as the somber effect I had for days upon seeing The Jimmy Show or the incorruptible cheerfulness I had upon seeing New York City Serenade. However, this reminds me that I'll never know exactly what Whaley will make next or how he'll approach his subject matter; he has now made four directorial efforts, each different from the last and all capable of producing different thoughts and emotions. It's hard enough to do that, let alone remain relevant for decades when you mostly have supporting character roles in films.

Starring: Leighton Meester, Julian Shatkin, and Billie Joe Armstrong. Directed by: Frank Whaley.

I stumbled onto this movie in the middle of a sleepless morning. I think it was the music that hooked me into watching the whole thing, simple, haunting, as important as the visual but on it's own merits. Instead, as in some movies, where music is used to create emotions that may or not be available on the screen, this music stood on it's own and was more an equal part of the movie rather than an accompaniment. Never wrote a review before and really don't want to critique this little gem of a love story. What really got me, being a professional trumpet player, was the story of her cornet playing, especially her saying it was and Olds. Someone really did their homework on this as Olds has been out of business for quite a while now, and in their day made superior innovative brass instruments. And then the long distance duet at the end which is what we all play for the loves we have lost or who are absent.

This movie is very slow, if you don't have any passion dont try to watch this movie. They have so many conflict, but not all of the confilct solved. The bonding between Eleanor and Reggie were so slow but at the end so good. My tears almost fall to saw that Reggie hurts of goodbye. After all, this is good but not must watch

7.4 stars.

There are many profoundly touching moments in this film, between a woman and a twelve year old boy. I came to tears for a few brief moments.

This young woman is basically penniless and desperate for some good fortune, but her boyfriend is a deadbeat and she can't make ends meet. She is hired to nanny a boy who is seemingly more intelligent and adult than everyone else. They grow very close and help each other find purpose and some meaning beyond the mundane.

The film is very endearing and emotional as we watch them interact and bond over a several month period of time. The positives are the acting and dialogue, which are superb. The negatives are that it's slow moving and perhaps could have been a bit more cheery.

I tried. There were elements of this movie that should have tugged on my heartstrings. But throughout I was reminded of "Uptown Girls," just with more cello and the guy from Green Day. And I'm a big art and movie nerd to the point where friends say, "Oh, that's HER type of movie where there's no ending and everyone is sad."

Reggie is a highly intelligent lonely 12 year old boy living with is overwhelmed mother in a mansion in New York. He doesn't have a lot of friends and seems bored to death with life. Eleanor is a 20 something from a poor background who just broke up with her loser boyfriend. She stumbles into the "live in" job of being Reggie's nanny while Reggie's mom goes to China for a few months. Reggie ditches the plan for him to attend camp during the summer and Reggie and Eleanor spend the summer together and well... develop strong feelings for each other. Though a little slow sometimes I enjoyed this very much. The actor that played Reggie was wonderful and like a 35 year old man in a 12 year old's body. Leighton Meester was quite good too. It is a simple, but good story, of people and emotions. With a bittersweet end to the story. I really wouldn't mind seeing a sequel to this when Reggie is 20.

Sometimes we come across a movie that inspires and can translate our thoughts and feelings somehow as we are going through them now. I have been down lately and this movie just started to play after I watched some random movie and I am thankful I gave this a chance, it was the most uplifting story I have seen in a long long while. I like movies that bring you to a reality that you are can relate with. I thought this movie was beautiful in all ways of the letters itself that we read it to meaning. It saved me from my hopeless thoughts and feelings. It is free to watch, it is brilliant in its own right. :)

The movie is fine, except that children who are raised with vegan diets are usually having malnutrition problems and can't be prodigies. Steve Jobs wasn't a vegan until he became famous and his woke vegan diet eventually killed him.