Pasión al atardecer

Saw this Saturday night at the Provincetown Film Festival, and it's a stick-to-your-bones movie -- it's really stayed with me. Adapted very smartly from what is probably an excellent novel, it's a back-and-forth-in-time drama with fully rounded characters, thoughtful rumination on life choices, and, I'm not exaggerating. one of the greatest casts ever assembled in 100+ years of movie-making. Wonderful work from everyone, led by a luminous Vanessa Redgrave as a dying, deluded Newport matron, and Claire Danes as her much younger self. Meryl Streep's daughter Mamie Gummer is, like Mama, the real deal; Patrick Wilson looks like Paul Newman circa 1958 and doesn't overplay the charm; and what a pleasure to see such excellent stage actors as Barry Bostwick and Eileen Atkins contributing sharp, detailed cameos. Hugh Dancy, also from the stage, doesn't bring much edge to the somewhat clichéd role of an unhappy rich wastrel, and the family issues are resolved perhaps more neatly than real life would allow. But it's a deliberately paced, visually gorgeous meditation on real life issues, and you can cry at it and not feel like you're being recklessly manipulated. Also, what a sumptuous parade of 1940s/50s automobiles.

I caught Evening in the cinema with a lady friend. Evening is a chick flick with no apologies for being such, but I can say with some relief that it's not so infused with estrogen that it's painful for a red-blooded male to watch. Except for a single instance at the very end of the movie, I watched with interest and did not have to turn away or roll my eyes at any self-indulgent melodrama. Ladies, for their part, will absolutely love this movie.

Ann Lord is elderly, bed-ridden and spending her last few days on Earth as comfortably as possible in her own home with her two grown daughters at her side. Discomfited by the memories of her past, Ann suddenly calls out a man's name her daughters have never heard before: Harris. While both of her daughters silently contemplate the significance of their mother's strong urge to recall and redress her ill-fated affair with this mysterious man at this of all times, Ann lapses back in her head to the fateful day she met Harris - and in doing so, lost the youthful optimism for the future that we all inevitably part ways with.

Both Ann and her two daughters - one married with children, one a serial "commitophobe" - struggle with the central question of whether true love really exists, and perhaps more importantly, if true love can endure the test of time. Are we all one day fated to realize that love never lasts forever? Will we all realize that settling for the imperfect is the only realistic outcome? The subtle fact that the aged Ann is still wrestling with an answer to these questions on her deathbed is not lost on her two daughters.

The cinematography for Evening is interesting - most of the film is spent in Ann's mind as she recalls the past, and for that reason I think the film was shot as if it was all deliberately overexposed, to give everyone an ethereal glow (and thus make it very obvious that all of this is not real, but occurred in the past). Claire Danes is beautiful (appearing to be really, really tall, though just 5' 5" in reality), and is absolutely captivating in one climactic scene where her singing talents are finally put to the test.

You can't really talk trash about the cast, which leads off with Claire Danes and doesn't let up from there: Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Meryl Streep and Glenn Close fill out the other major and minor roles in the film.

I can't really say anything negative about this film at all, though Hugh Dancy's struggle to have his character emerge from utter one-dimensionality is in the end a total loss. Playing the spoiled, lovable drunk offspring of the obscenely rich who puts up a front of great bravado but is secretly scared stiff of never amounting to anything probably doesn't offer much in the way of character exploration - he had his orders and stuck to them.

In the end, gentlemen, your lady friend will most certainly weep, and while you'll likely not feel nearly as affected, the evening will definitely not be a waste for the time spent watching Evening. Catch it in theatres or grab it as a rental to trade off for points for when you want to be accompanied to a viewing of Die Hard 4 or the upcoming Rambo flick. It'll be your little secret that this viewing didn't really cost you much at all.

Evening tells a story worth hearing but unfortunately it gets lost along the way. There's too much focus on the present - not just Vanessa Redgrave's performance as the older Ann but mostly the subplot regarding her children. It's necessary to come to the present at times so that we can see how what has happened in the past has affected her and how she chooses to remember but the rest of it just weighs the film down without complementing it as it was meant to. The performances in the present scenes also lack the same elegance as those that take place in the past. Collette is a great actress but she and her boyfriend's actor both give average performances that just get in the way. The story that takes place in the past dealing with love, identity, and choice all within a few days time is where the film truly shines. Danes, of course, gives a great performance but Dancy is the one who steals the spotlight with what I feel should've garnered him a nomination for supporting actor at the Academy awards. The story is eloquent, melancholy, and can be felt as well as understood from deeper thought. If it weren't so muddled by what takes place in the present then it could've been a great film but as it stands with the way it is I can only call it good but not great. Another point of interest is the film's score which is just absolutely beautiful. So if you want to see a good movie then Evening is for you - just don't expect every piece to be wondrous as the wonder occurs in the past and is watered down by the present. That's just how I felt about it.

At least three writers (Washington Post, TimeOut New York, The New Yorker) have said this new movie would have worked better if made into a full-on melodrama by Douglas Sirk. This intermittent account of the death by cancer of an elderly lady named Ann Grant (Vanessa Redgrave), enlivened by lengthy and elaborate flashbacks to her medication-enriched memories of the early Fifties Newport wedding day of her upper class college friend Lila Wittenborn (Mamie Gummer; and Mamie's mother, Meryl Streep) is glamorized to the point of extinction by its cinematographer-director Lajos Koltai. (That Koltai should have gone from the spare, powerful Holocaust drama 'Fateless' to this confection is pretty tragic.) You'll never see such nice new England summer beach houses, so many scenes full of well-dressed people, or so many shiny late Forties convertibles with the tops down. But the scenes, which ought to have you weeping uncontrollably, just make you look at your watch and wonder where the payoff is, in the Fifties or in that house where Ann Grant is dying while her two squabbling and unlikely daughters, the proper Connie (Natasha Richardson) and the confused but honest Nina (Toni Colette), hang around downstairs.

The cast is so heavy-laden with divas (besides those mentioned, there are Clare Danes as the young Ann—an imperfect match; Glenn Close as Lila's stylish, patrician mamá; and Eileen Atkins as the night nurse) it renders the movie's conventional scenes unimportant and sinks its gossamer profundities. "At the end, so much of it turns out not to matter," Streep tells Colette, and us; "There is no such thing as a mistake." And then: "We are mysterious creatures, aren't we?" Is it enough reward for ten dollars, overpriced popcorn, and a wait of two hours to come up with nothing but that? True, though: much of the movie turns out not to matter—though there may well be such a thing as a mistake—and it's called 'Evening.' At the end it all adds up to the psychobabble truism that everybody did the best they could at the time. Which maybe wasn't very good; but the details are missing.

Ann comes in and out of consciousness muttering the name of Harris (Patrick Wilson), whom "everybody loved" but Nina and Connie have never heard of. And so the point of the story is . . .what became of Harris? No, not really. Nor is it what becomes of Nina and Connie, because they remain unformed or undefined; not Ann, because we learn little of what she did with her life, except that she had two girls and a couple of husbands she didn't love as much as Harris and gave up her career as a cabaret singer. Not what happened to Lila, who wanted to marry Harris but got hitched to somebody else (mainly no doubt because Harris was the housekeeper's son—though in the swirl of the glamour and the blur of the alternating time schemes these social distinction aren't well delineated). Lila just comes back at the end to cuddle with Ann in a Chanel-esquire suit and utter those little profundities. There are some embarrassing tricks with fake fireflies and moths that Vanessa has to take part in and Eileen Atkins has to dress up like a fairy godmother. As Rex Reed says, "it's amazing how good everyone looks in white linen." But still.

Of course, for acting fans there is bound to be material to enjoy here. Though they overwhelm the movie, it's fun just to see these people on the screen. Vanessa Redgrave is great, getting the most from her lines without seeming hammy. When Meryl Streep climbs into her deathbed with her, it's some kind of ultimate Hollywood Kodak moment. Toni Colette, who can be irritating and even ghoulish, is appealing as the neurotic but ever hopeful Nina. Cunningham's very post-Sirk beautiful loser character Buddy, the doomed, passionate, and blooming drunkard, a character central to the flashback action though barely mentioned in Susan Minot's book, gives the sexy and riveting Hugh Dancy (somebody we're surely going to see a lot more of) a chance to chew up the rug—which suggests Cunningham would really have some fun and give us something worth watching if he let go and just winged it without his own or anybody else's novel to have to slice and dice. People think Michael Cunningham is so good for movies (though some of us have yet to be convinced). Well then, why doesn't he do one, instead of redoing other things for other people to direct?. He adapted his own novel 'A Home at the End of the World;' David Hare adapted his 'The Hours;' this time he has adapted Susan Minot's novel. (Rumor has it she's not that happy with the result. Why should she be?) Isn't it time for Cunningham to write an original screenplay? Then we can see what he can do, and it better be good. And it better not be like this. Despite Todd Haynes' effort in 'Far from Heaven,' this is not an age in which the Sirkian sensibility makes sense. 'Evening' is a celebration of regret. In the era of George W. Bush that no longer seems like a viable emotion.

A lot of times, throwing a bunch of A-list actors and actresses together results in an overshadowing of everything, including plot. All the actors trying to out-act each other and shine, when it all just ends up having potential and failing immensely. With Evening, this is not the case. I love the opening shots of the film, and from the beginning, the atmosphere is simplistic and beautiful enough to visually and emotionally capture my attention. The story begins slowly and builds into a very elegant love/tragedy that is only bettered by the actors and actresses.

Like I said, the actors and actresses in this film are pretty well known, but not all of them are generally considered "A-list". They all pull off their parts to the fullest, of course Meryl Streep and Claire Danes do, and everyone brings to the movie something on a level of calm, refined art. It's a very nicely put together movie with a solid storyline and overly appeasing acting chops. I would recommend it to anyone who looks for movies that are hidden gems.