The Sleepy Time Gal

With his first two films, The Hours and Time and Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day (both of which played at the Sundance Film Festival), Chris Munch established himself as a gifted and perceptive writer/director with an assured style and a willingness to take risks with complex dialogue and composition. Munch brings a level of intelligence to independent cinema uniquely his own. The Sleepy Time Gal is yet another of his outstanding creative achievements and emanates wisdom and insight into life’s desires and travails.

Jacqueline Bisset gracefully delivers one of her most intricate performances to date as she portrays “The Sleepy Time Gal,” a onetime radio DJ whose show brought happiness to countless people while she remained ever unfulfilled, despite many loves and successes.

The film lyrically unravels the events of her life, her children – an aimless son who wants nothing more than to distance himself from this magnetic but overbearing whirlwind of a mother and the illegitimate daughter she gave up for adoption who now seeks a chance to meet her biological mother – and the influence she has on them and others.

Munch brings a level of sophistication to his characters rarely seen in young directors. Exploring the unquenched desire existing within anyone who has yearned for something more, he creates a solemn portrait of an enormously complex and brave woman and a life filled with immense pleasure and pain.