Evening

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.

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.

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"!

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.