Pasión al atardecer

Since starting to read the book this movie is based on, I'm having mixed feelings about the filmed result. I learned some time ago to see the movie adaptation of a book before I read the book, because I found that if I read the book first I was inevitably disappointed in the film. This would undoubtedly have been true here, whereas in the case of Atonement, which is probably the best filmed adaptation of a book I've ever seen, it would probably not have mattered.

I'm trying to figure out what the cause is, and I suspect that I have to point my finger squarely at Michael Cunningham. Much as I respect him for The Hours (which I have not read but which I saw and was awed by) I cannot escape the feeling that he not so much adapted Susan Minton's book as he did take a few of the characters and the basic premise and write his own movie out of it.

It's not that I dislike the movie. I actually love the movie, which is why, since I started reading the novel, I'm feeling disturbed about the whole thing. I feel disloyal to Ms. Minton for enjoying the movie which was so thooughly a departure from her work. Reading it, I can understand why she had such a struggle adapting it. Unlike what one reviewer of the movie said, it's not so much that some novels don't deserve to be a movie; it's more like some books just can't make the transition. Ms. Minton's novel operates on a level so personal and intimate to her central character, so internally, that it seems impossible to me to place it in a physical realm. Even though a lot of the book is memory of real events, it is memory, and so fragmented and ethereal as to be, I feel, not filmable. I think that Ms. Minton's work is a real work of literature, but cannot make the transition to film, which in no way detracts from its value.

I cannot yet report that Evening, the film, does not represent Evening, the novel, in any more than the most superficial way, since I'm only halfway through, but the original would have to make a tremendous leap to resemble the film that follows at this point. I guess I'm writing this because I feel that if you're going to adapt a novel, adapt it, but don't make it something else that it's not. I'm not sure if Michael Cunningham has done anything wholly original, but from what I can see so far the things he has done are all based on someone else's work. We would not have The Hours if Virginia Woolf had not written Mrs. Dalloway, and we would not have Evening, in its distressed form, if Susan Minton had not had so much trouble doing what probably should not have been attempted in the first place. But it's too much to say that it would be better if Ms. Minton had left well enough alone, because Evening, the film, is a satisfactory and beautiful work of its own.

Thus my confusion, mixed feelings, sense of disloyalty, and ultimate conclusion that, in this case, the novel cannot be the film and vice versa, and my eventual gratitude to both writers for doing what they did, so that we have both works as they are.

This is not a profound movie; most of the plot aspects are pretty predictable and "tried and true" but it was well-acted and made some interesting points about what we might regret (our "mistakes" as the movie calls them) as we look back over our lives. I had not read the book, so didn't know much other than it was the story of a dying woman who has strong memories from long ago that she hasn't really shared with anyone. Thankfully they got a top-notch cast....Meryl

Streep's daughter, Mamie Gummer, plays the young Lila, and then Meryl shows up at the end of the film as the old Lila...in addition to an amazing resemblance (duh!) the younger actress did a great job (perhaps not quite up to her mom's caliber, but who is?) All others in this film were fine, although I wish there had been more of Glen Close and thought the Buddy character was alittle too dramatic.

This is more of a girls' movie than for the guys, but a good one to see with your mom, or your daughter, and maybe start some dialog going. How hard it is to really know a parent as a "person"!

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 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.

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.