Evening (2007)

Morning, Noon and...

Don't be fooled by the stellar cast: "Evening" is an endless B-movie bore from start to finish. There's enough plot for three films -- and with so many false endings you may feel as if you've been watching for that long -- but none of it means anything. The pace is glacial, the script trite, the characters whiny. And it's all presented as an extremely "important" exploration of love, loss and the human condition. Hogwash. This is an "Art" film that's so self-consciously "artsy" I wanted to run screaming from the theater. (And I LIKE art films.) Two stars for the costumes, art direction and the ever-reliable pro performances of Eileen Atkins, Meryl Streep and Toni Collette; none of which is enough to justify this stultifying waste of film. July 15, 2008

a mixed bag but with some fine performances

A stellar cast, consisting of Vanessa Redgrave, Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Natasha Richardson, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep, is reason enough for watching "Evening," one of those high-toned, slightly stuffy, intergenerational family dramas that is all about lost loves, wasted lives and missed opportunities, this time among the champagne-sipping elite of Newport, Rhode island.

Redgrave stars as Ann Grant, a terminally ill woman whose dementia is leading her to reveal secrets on her deathbed that have been locked away in her memory for years. Collette and Richardson play her two adult daughters who are able to glean only a few tantalizing nuggets about their mother`s past as they emerge randomly and still partially obscured from the fog of her delirium. These scenes set in the present are intercut with those from the past, the 1950's in fact, when a young Ann (now played by Danes) fell in love with Harris (Patrick Wilson), the servant of her best friend, Lila (Mamie Gummer, who looks for all the world like a young Meryl Streep, who indeed steps in as Lila for the present scenes). Lila also happens to be in love with Harris, but she is instead marrying Karl (Timothy Kiefler), mainly because his aristocratic pedigree mixes better with her family's blue blood (echoes of the much-better "Atonement" abound throughout). Further complicating matters is Lila's kid brother, Buddy (Hugh Dancy), who appears to be in love with both Ann and Harris at one and the same time.

Needless to say, much of this plays like a tony, high-class soap opera, but at least two of the characters manage to rise above the suds and fully engage our interest: Colette's Nina, whose paralyzing fear of commitment and of making life-altering mistakes threatens to leave her a bitter, lonely woman; and Dancy`s Buddy, whose conflicted sexuality brings an unforeseen complexity and depth to the character. Most of the rest of the characters are considerably less interesting, including Ann (both the one in the present and the one in the past) whose personal revelations are supposed to be the glue holding this overpopulated story together. Harris is a particularly bland and uncharismatic figure for a man who is supposed to be such an irresistible magnetic attraction for at least three of the principal characters in the story.

The burden of transferring Susan Manot's novel to the screen has fallen on the shoulders of director Lajos Koltai, whose metier seems to consist primarily of pretty landscapes, dusky lighting and tinkling pianos. And yet, amid all the soap opera trappings, the movie has some important things to say about not just letting go of the past but of having the courage to move into the future.

"Evening" is decidedly a mixed bag as far as moviemaking and drama go, but the powerhouse performances (particularly by Collette, Richardson, Redgrave and Dancy) make for worthwhile viewing.
July 5, 2008

Horrible turgid piece of cow dung

What a waste of such grerat talent. Nothing is believable. I think I lost it when the fireflies swarmed around Vanessa Redgrave, the dying matriarch. Really shows what an overrated piece of claptrap "The Hours" was. Nothing more needs to be said than what some of the others have opined. July 3, 2008

Lovely Movie

If your a romantic by heart you should see this movie. Plus it has a great cast. July 1, 2008

I just don't buy it

The only reason I'm giving this movie two stars instead of one is that it has potential and a good cast. I think the actors did all they could with the material they were given, the problem was...there wasn't much material to go on. What I had the hardest time with was the character Harris. He is the love interest of three of the characters, and thus central to the story but he has the personality of a door! It made everything else fall apart, which is sad because the story probably had something more potent to say.

To end on a more positive note, I was pleasantly surprised by Hugh Dancy. He really made me feel for Buddy, and I still want to know what he was going to tell Ann. July 1, 2008

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