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The Sleepy Time Gal
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Directed by Christopher Munch.
Two women connected by family are drawn closer by fate in this low-key drama. Frances (Jacqueline Bisset) is a woman in her early fifties who had already begun to sense time was running out for her when she learned that she has cancer. While Frances is fighting the disease through medical treatment, she decides it's a good idea to do some travelling before it's too late, and she pays a visit to Bob (Seymour Cassel), a former boyfriend who now owns a farm in rural Pennsylvania. To Bob's surprise, Frances strikes up a fast friendship with his wife Betty (Peggy Gormley), and Frances shares a confession with her -- while Frances maintains a close relationship with her son Morgan (Nick Stahl), she also had a daughter by Bob that she put up for adoption, and she's not certain if she should track down the child while there's still time. Coincidentally, Frances' daughter is Rebecca (Martha Plimpton), a successful lawyer who has begun to express a curiosity about her birth parents. Rebecca has been hired by a large communications firm to deal with the paperwork regarding the purchase of a radio station in Florida, and while in the Sunshine State, Rebecca gets to know the station's manager, Jimmy (Frankie R. Faison). As Jimmy and Rebecca ease into a short-term romance, he shares stories about the "Sleepy Time Gal," a mysterious female disc jockey who worked at the station back in the '50s; what neither Jimmy nor Rebecca know is that the Sleepy Time Gal was actually Frances. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
liked it.
This hushed drama from indie maverick Christopher Munch never received a theatrical release despite some good reviews upon its premiere at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Starring a superb Jacqueline Bisset as a woman dying of cancer, The Sleepy Time Gal is about the search for identity -- a search that, Munch suggests, lasts a lifetime. Even as Rebecca (Martha Plimpton), an Ivy League-educated career woman, seeks the woman who gave her up for adoption when she was an infant, Frances (Bisset) wishes to meet the daughter she gave away before she dies. Flitting back and forth through time, Sleepy Time Gal imparts the feeling of a life fully lived. A common visual motif is a stray cut here and there to an inscription, a gravestone or a memorial (Frances was a history buff), subtly conveying a keen sense of mortality, as well as underscoring the movie's obsession with the past. Almost European in its low-key approach to prime dramatic material, the somewhat contrived plot and stilted dialogue are mitigated by Munch's understated, delicate visuals. Though hardly perfect, the movie's evocation of the mystical connections between parent and child -- and the impalpable legacy that one bequeaths another -- leaves a poignant imprint. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
 



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