Sunday

What a risky, amazing film! One could call it small, but only in its focus on "ordinary" needy people. In its theme and treatment it has a humaness and innovation that most so-called "big" movies totally lack. A man,Oliver, who has lost his job, family, middle-class status, is living in a homeless shelter with truly down-and-outers. It's Sunday in New York, Queens. On the street a has-been actress mistakes him for a director she once knew. He plays along...The viewer gets to know these sad people inside-out as they begin a relationship. The city itself and its derelicts are intercut into the continuity, becoming significant "characters" in themselves. The musical score is rich and fitting, international and enhancing. Jonathan Nossiter, the director, deserves more accolades than he probably received. See this film!!!

The film's gritty outer-borough images of Queens, familiar to any born and bred New Yorker, got my attention instantly. But it was the film's two principal characters--both middle-aged, both survivors of difficult lives--that sustained it. He, an out-of-work middle management type, is a victim of corporate downsizing now living in a homeless shelter among a multiethnic, multiracial horde of down-and-outers, where he struggles to maintain bare-minimum standards of privacy and personal hygiene--and where remnants of his middle-class life set him apart from his surroundings. She, a faded beauty and still-struggling actress, maintains an oddly genteel life in a rundown two-family house nearby, surrounded by weedy lots and shuttered factories. As they meet and proceed to remove their masks, a kind of love story--brief, impossible, and ultimately doomed, is ignited. This is a beautifully shot and acted film, and a deeply affecting one.

One of the most unique films I've seen in years. An indie film with a meticulously well thought-out story, full of clever twists and surprises; not a comedy but an offbeat drama with some amusing moments. Excellently conceived and directed, with Lisa Harrow as the standout (great body, too). The only minus is the amateurish overacting provided by Richard Harris's little boy, Jarred. I have no idea how this talentless, nepotist, unsympathetic nerd manages to get his face into so many interesting movies.

Unfortunately, indie films have already had their heyday in the 90s, and are by now (2006) as good as dead. Today, nearly every indie film has to have a PC message, and is made by a talentless moron.

If Queens is truly an `un-place,' then 'Sunday' is an `un-film.' That is to say un-believably magnificent! To give this masterpiece a particular label, would rob this wonderfully imaginative film of the root of its quirky charm.

I was not familiar with the work of either David Suchet or Lisa Harrow, though I did recognize the name of the director, Jonathan Nossiter.

This delightful and honest film rearranges stereotypical categorizations and societal stigmas by transporting us to the `other side of the glass.' While not in great detail, we are acquainted with each member of the men's shelter, which is the location around which 'Sunday' revolves. Some characters are endearing, such as the Vietnamese man who sings opera tunes to canned music in the subway for change, or Ray, the red-haired chain-smoking man who roams the street looking at women's legs and relentlessly searching for the ultimate porn mag.

I believe that this again supports the central theme, which discourages as well as discredits the practice of labeling and stigmatizing. The viewer is forced instead, to get to know the men and appreciate each of them on the basis of their individuality.

'Sunday' creatively addresses many issues: shame, regret, pride, and deceit. Suchet's character, the protagonist, Oliver Levy-who may or may not be an alias for the famed film director, Matthew de la Corta-is a disillusioned middle-aged fellow who, by way of an unlikely exchange on the streets if Queens, meets Harrow's Madeleine, a woman of similar age and emotional status. The pretense of their meeting is initially awkward and unusual, if not completely bizarre.

However, as the film progresses, a most amazing transformation occurs. Within a mere twelve-hour period, amid large amounts of uncertainty, assumption and tactful execution of the imagination, Madeleine and Matthew become tremendously close. By evening, after a few choice run-ins with Madeleine's estranged (as well as strange) husband, Ben, she and Matthew are seen holding hands in a Queens diner, talking intimately like old friends.

The point is finally stated-after having been corroborated by the preceding film-that although the world would like to base our worth on `what we do,' in the sense of corporate achievement, the true quality of a person lies, rather, in who we think we are. The way in which we are perceived and subsequently accepted by the people who love us and believe in our potential to succeed, is far more instrumental in our pursuit of fulfillment.

Life, inside as well as outside the shelter, is a collection of intricate and unique parts that constitute a whole. Each person has within himself or herself the power to be great, but greatness is subjective. This film proves that love can be found anywhere, whether in a shabby diner over the odd Ozarta, or while walking back from a subway lugging a large house plant.

'Sunday' gloriously shows us that whether ones glasses are on or off, it is not with the eyes, but with the heart that we can clearly see the wondrous spectacle of true love.

A delight in a world where "if you don't know what's going on in the first thirty seconds, you're lost." The first half-hour or so lets a viewer take in another world, one with which she may not be familiar, and allows a gradual "easing into" the plot, which sheds far more light on human behavior than almost any ten glossy, big-budget H-wood films out there. Most won't want to do the work required to fully appreciate this film. Take the time, talk it over, then get Signs and Wonders.