The Sleepy Time Gal

'What if life's nothing but a shitload of missed chances?' wonders Frances (Bisset), a middle-aged woman trying to make sense of a rich, successful, tragic life after she's diagnosed with cancer. 'Hopes realised. People loving people,' counters the man she should have married (Cassel). 'A recognition of shared destiny. A willingness to move with things.' Münch's film is full of elegant conversations like this. It feels more like a literary novel than a movie. The subplot involving Plimpton as a lawyer trying to track down her natural mother - who put her up for adoption - also feels like a literary device. That said, Munch's rather awkward cerebral style is infinitely preferable to the tear-sodden melodrama Hollywood specialises in, and he gets a complex, beautifully honest performance out of Bisset.