A Sunday Kind of Love

A surprisingly enjoyable film about love, art, life and Death. Typically, films involving Death personified stray heavily into cliché. This one avoids all of the typical traps and ventures into its own territory at a lyrical pace. Particularly enjoyed the performances of the three leads: Dylan Taylor as the novelist whose number may be up; Meghan Heffern as his frustrated but supportive partner; and Melanie Scrofano as the sweetest incarnation of death this side of the afterlife. The actors seem to have found a very natural connection with each other. Smart, natural and thoughtful dialogue plays out against a backdrop of Toronto landmarks and a nice score to make for a very pleasing 90 minutes.

This has been done before of course. But every take on this theme is a little different. Aspiring writer meets Death and learns he has a short time to live. How will he spend his final time? Excellent acting by both stars, but Melanie pegs it as a bright, lively and "fun" Death (for what that's worth). She makes the movie; without her chops it likely wouldn't have been as enjoyable. A great movie? No, but it has something to say and does a good job of it. Parts of it drag on, seemingly needlessly. There are many parts that could have been cut in preference of something more interesting (too many coffee shops and pubs involved in the storytelling) but they do provide the backdrop for the numerous discussions between the writer and Death-- conversations which are the primary focus of the film All in all well worth watching. It's of course fantasy and highly unrealistic. Some of the thoughts are lost due to the implausible storyline, but the flm does have a message and in the end, they succeed in getting it across. What is really important in life? Why do people who believe in immortality resist and fear death so greatly? (The question asked in all such films.) This one provides a decent answer and a well-designed ending, so it works.