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