FILM SCREENINGS

The Sleepy Time Gal

2001. USA. Written and directed by Christopher Munch. With Jacqueline Bisset, Martha Plimpton, Seymour Cassel, Nick Stahl. Following his eloquent, elegiac, and luminously photographed Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day (1996) and The Hours and Times (1991), Munch’s third feature stars Jacqueline Bisset in a career-defining performance as the beautiful, willful, and unsentimental Frances—the once-locally famous late-night radio DJ of the film’s title—who is forced to confront her own mortality and the daughter she gave up for adoption. A filmmaker of uncommon intelligence and sensitivity, Munch avoids the pitfalls of melodramatic cliché in depicting a woman who, as the critic Dennis Lim writes, is “abundant in both bliss and agony, marked equally by snatched opportunities and lingering regrets.” 108 min.