Pasión al atardecer

Halfway through Lajos Koltai's "Evening," a woman on her deathbed asks a figure appearing in her hallucination: "Can you tell me where my life went?" The line could be embarrassingly theatrical, but the woman speaking it is Vanessa Redgrave, delivering it with utter simplicity, and the question tears your heart out.

Time and again, the film based on Susan Minot's novel skirts sentimentality and ordinariness, it holds attention, offers admirable performances, and engenders emotional involvement as few recent movies have. With only six months of the year gone, there are now two memorable, meaningful, worthwhile films in theaters, the other, of course, being Sara Polley's "Away from Her." Hollywood might have turned "Evening" into a slick celebrity vehicle with its two pairs of real-life mothers and daughters - Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson, and Meryl Streep and Mamie Gummer. Richardson is Redgrave's daughter in the film (with a sister played by Tony Collette), and Gummer plays Streep's younger self, while Redgrave's youthful incarnation is Claire Danes.

Add Glenn Close, Eileen Atkins, Hugh Dancy, Patrick Wilson, and a large cast - yes, it could have turned into a multiple star platform. Instead, Koltai - the brilliant Hungarian cinematographer of "Mephisto," and director of "Fateless" - created a subtle ensemble work with a "Continental feel," the story taking place in a high-society Newport environment, in the days leading up to a wedding that is fraught with trouble.

Missed connections, wrong choices, and dutiful compliance with social and family pressures present quite a soap opera, but the quality of the writing, Koltai's direction, and selfless acting raise "Evening" way above that level, into the the rarified air of English, French (and a few American) family sagas from a century before its contemporary setting.

Complex relationships between mothers and daughters, between friends and lovers, with the addition of a difficult triangle all come across clearly, understandably, captivatingly. Individual tunes are woven into a symphony.

And yet, with the all the foregoing emphasis on ensemble and selfless performances, the stars of "Evening" still shine through, Redgrave, Richardson, Gummer (an exciting new discovery, looking vaguely like her mother, but a very different actress), Danes carrying most of the load - until Streep shows up in the final moments and, of course, steals the show. Dancy and Wilson are well worth the price of admission too.

As with "Away from Her," "Evening" stays with you at length, inviting a re-thinking its story and characters, and re-experiencing the emotions it raises. At two hours, the film runs a bit long, but the way it stays with you thereafter is welcome among the many movies that go cold long before your popcorn.

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.

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 is the beautiful story of the flawed love of a mother. The movie split in time, is magically shot, amazingly acted and has a touching script. Vanessa Redgrave plays Anne Grant Lord, a woman sun-setting out of life. Lying in her bed, her mind remembering and misfiring, she recalls her first mistake. Claire Danes plays the young Anne, giving a youthful vitality to dying bed ridden woman. Daughters Nina (Toni Collette) and Constance (Natasha Richardson) try to decipher the real story from the disheartening dementia. Her first mistake revolves around Harris Arden (Patrick Wilson); the man her best friend Lila (Mamie Gummer) deeply loved. The daughters must come to terms with their mother's past, and their futures. The cast is glowing in Evening. The collective acting energy of this movie could have powered the equipment for the production of this entire film. I am so glad to see Claire Danes working again, especially in this role. She is so young, and alive, fully living the joys, mistakes and heartbreak of young Anne's first mistake. This is a true feat when you realize she is playing a woman, dying in bed. When her life overwhelms her, you can feel her desire to crack and her hopeless hope that she won't. Some of her facial expressions grinded on me a little, but over all her performance was so radiant, I was left with that only as a side note. Toni Collette continues to prove that you can be a powerful actress without being a super model. She plays the black sheep of the family; a little lost. Nina finds a great deal of strength in her mother's mistake. Collette delicately avoids creating a cruel character who revels in the mistakes of her mother, instead choosing the wiser path of learning from her mother's mistakes. There is a great deal of infighting between Nina and her sister Constance. Their fights remind me of ones I have with my sister all the time. Mamie Gummer, who plays Anne's youthful best friend, is wonderful. Her character is stuck between her heart and her status in society. Even when she is crying and her heart is breaking, she is incredibly regal and charming. I can't wait to see her act in something else in the future. Vanessa Redgrave's performance is very hard for me to describe. Her talent at making her mental status ambiguous without being wacko or even especially tragic is why it is so powerful. The audience does not know if she is making up the story because she is slipping away or if these events truly happened. Physically and emotionally speaking, Redgrave is acting in a box. Not much physical space and limited emotional range might have been a stunner to a lesser actress but she makes the limitations work for her. I was constantly amazed. The movie is definitely woman-focused but the men in the movie are not just accessories. Patrick Wilson is mesmerizing as Harris. It is no wonder that everyone in the movie is in love with him, I sure was. Buddy Wittenborn is Lila's brother, spiraling out of control. Hugh Dancy spirals Buddy out of control without sending his acting down the drain. Glen Close has my favorite scene in the movie. It reminded me of the famous scene from Monster's Ball. It is terrible and jaw dropping grief. I was utterly stunned. The one acting disappointment was Natasha Richardson. While her fight scenes were memorable, most of her acting reeks of melodrama. It would have suited her to take an acting bath before we had to breathe her stink. It's a good thing she wasn't in charge of the visuals. The visuals of the movie are sparkling. Cinematographer Gyula Pados couldn't make a film richer in color, light so perfectly matched to mood and emotion. The visual concepts of the flash back sequences are powerful and resonating. There were many scenes that could have been stopped, printed, mounted and sold as art. I admit it, I cried. Evening is a powerful movie. Evening is defiantly a chick flick but a really great chick flick. If you want to impress a woman with a movie choice, pick Evening.