David Suchet, Lisa Harrow
A homeless man wakes up one Sunday morning in a group home, goes through his morning ablutions and heads out for another day of walking aimlessly through the snowy streets of New York City. An attractive middle-aged woman carrying a large plant spies him from across a road and yells out a greeting. She crosses the street to talk. Doesn't he remember her? They last met in London? She had auditioned for one of his movies? Surely he remembers?
So begins Sunday, a delicate and affecting drama by first-time director and coscreenwriter Jonathan Nossiter, which won both the screenwriting and best-film prizes at last winter's Sundance Film Festival. The movie is about the long day spent together by the homeless man (Suchet), whose life has fallen apart after he was downsized out of his job at IBM, and the woman (Harrow), an out-of-work British actress living unhappily with her estranged husband and child in a cramped rowhouse in Queens. She has mistaken Suchet for a famous English director. He plays along. When he finally tries to tell her the truth, she chooses to ignore it and continue with the deception. But which man is she making love to?
Sunday is about living in exile, whether from one's life or one's country, and about seeing others as we choose to see them, which is not always as they are. Both Suchet, best known to American audiences as Hercule Poirot in PBS's Mystery! series, and Harrow (The Last Days of Chez Nous) are excellent. (No rating)
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