Starting Out in the Evening

Greetings again from the darkness. I saw two films here. One was spellbinding, fascinating and enlightening and featured a top-notch performance from Frank Langella. The "other" film was anytime Lauren Ambrose ("Six Feet Under") appeared on screen. Every time she opened her mouth, I felt myself deflate. Not only is she awkward to look at, but this part was poorly written and horribly acted. Langella was in an Oscar worthy film, while Ambrose was in a weak Lifetime flick.

Let's concentrate on the good stuff. Langella is Leonard Schiller, an aging novelist, who time not only has forgotten, but really never really knew in the first place. A grad student shows up under the premise of resurrecting his career through her thesis. One dose of reality later, they are spending enormous amounts of time talking about his life and writing. Langella's performance is so textured and subtle that we can feel his pain while recollecting and his anxiety while (almost) touching Ambrose (the grad student) for the first time.

This is director Andrew Wagner's first real film and he displays quite a knack for filming faces and allowing the pace of the film to mirror the reserved, simmering nature of Langella's character. Based on a novel by Brian Morton, the story focuses on a writer's desperation to finish his last novel but also on an aging man's struggle with a body that is continually letting him down ... at times to the point of humiliation.

Lili Taylor plays Langella's well meaning, but confused daughter who reconnects with an ex-lover played very well by Adrian Lester ("Primary Colors"). The sub-plots are a nice addition to the story and provide contrast to the reserved demeanor of Langella's character.

I have no idea how this film will ever find an audience, but those who love intricate character studies will be mesmerized by the Langella side of the film. Sadly, you will just have to fight through the whole grad student role ... think of it as the obnoxious person at an otherwise great party. Last note - the score is a nice compliment to the film and in lesser hands, could have been a distraction. Nicely done.

It should come as no surprise that this quietly affecting character study barely left a trace in theaters last year since movies about literature and the writing process are hardly fodder for young teenaged boys looking for outsized CGI-saturated extravaganzas. However, co-writer/director Andrew Wagner's ("The Talent Given Us") sophomore effort benefits immeasurably from Frank Langella's deeply nuanced performance as a once-renowned novelist long forgotten and facing his own mortality as he attempts to finish a valedictorian work ten years in development. With his recognizably sonorous voice and intensely watchful manner, the 68-year-old actor has never been known for playing sympathetic roles, but he seizes the heart of a becalmed man so engulfed in the creative process that he reacts to any intrusion upon it with a subtle, leonine fury. It's been nearly four decades since his film debut as the egotistical, caddish writer in Frank Perry's "Diary of a Mad Housewife", but what a treat to see him bookend that performance with this one.

Langella portrays New York-based Leonard Schiller, whose four published novels have been out of print for years. In declining health, Schiller tries to interest a publisher friend in his latest, yet-to-be-completed novel, but he is told there is no market for literary-type novels. Precipitously, an enthusiastic graduate student named Heather Wolfe walks into Schiller's intensely private life to request a series of interviews for a masters thesis she wants to write about him. She is such an unabashed fan that her goal is no less than having Schiller rediscovered. The author is initially resistant, but he wears down under her coquettish persistence. At the same time, Schiller's self-loathing daughter Ariel has grown up being used to playing second-fiddle to her father's work. Single and closing in on forty, she hears her biological clock ticking as she resuscitates an embattled relationship with her estranged lover Casey, who is equally vehement about not having children. The plot threads eventually mesh when Schiller opens up to Heather and realizes how dormant he has kept his feelings since his wife's death over two decades earlier.

Beyond Langella is a trio of solid performances though none nearly as impressive as his. Lauren Ambrose ("Six Feet Under") captures Heather's youthful vigor and innate intelligence, but I found her use of Lolita-style wiles to be a bit mechanical within the scheme of the storyline. Always worth watching, Lili Taylor is on pretty familiar territory as the conflicted Ariel, but she manages to bring her likeably neurotic manner to the role. I haven't seen Adrian Lester since Mike Nichols' "Primary Colors", but he's a welcome addition here as the slow-to-evolve Casey, especially in a tense small-talk scene with Schiller during Ariel's birthday celebration. In fact, much of the dialogue by Wagner and co-writer Fred Parnes has a smart, insightful quality that doesn't call undue attention to the intellectual observations of the characters. Even more, their strong screenplay makes the series of rude awakenings toward the end resonate with a combination of heart and necessary harshness. The 2008 DVD is short on extras - Wagner's thoughtful commentary and the theatrical trailer - but this small-scale film is well worth discovering, especially to see Langella at the very top of his game.

At the risk of sounding cliché', this movie is not for everyone. It moves a bit slowly in the beginning, and assumes a few things about its audience. But the overall feel of the movie, and the message that it communicates is very endearing.

Frank Langella is amazing as always, and perfectly captures what it's like to be a writer. His character is a true gentleman. He drinks tea, stands when a lady enters or leaves the room, and speaks honestly but with a polite tact when it's called for. It was really a nice thing to see.

Lili Taylor was hard to get a feel for. I just couldn't connect with her character. Probably because she was turning 40 and trying to have a kid. But her relationship with Adrian Lester was very genuine. They had a great chemistry that really played on the heart-strings.

Lauren Ambrose was a little quirky. The chemistry between her and Frank seemed too forced to me, and not because of the age difference. The only way I can describe it is by invoking the imagery of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object.

But as I said, overall, the film is beautiful. The characters are richly developed, the music is beautiful, and the story really pulls you in as it unfolds. I wasn't quite sure how to feel about it, initially. But the more I watched, my love for the film gained momentum and really started to grow.

I would recommend this movie for readers, writers, and anyone who enjoys a good drama.

I saw this film at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.

Starting Out in the Evening is based on the novel by Brian Morton, and stars Frank Langella in an understated role as Leonard Schiller, a once great novelist and now-retired literary professor. His previous books now long out-of-print, Leonard is struggling to finish his latest novel, a decade and counting in the making. Further distracting him from his novel is his genial but occasionally strained relationship with his daughter Ariel (Lily Taylor), who is nearing 40 and wanting a baby, but stuck back in a relationship with her ex-boyfriend Casey (Adrian Lester), who is most decidedly against the idea.

Another complication comes in the form of a young grad student, Heather (Lauren Ambrose), who has made Leonard the subject of her master's thesis. Heather is determined to discover the overriding theme in Schiller's work, the early part of which inspired her to pursue her dreams in college. The conversations that Leonard and Heather have cover the gamut of literary criticism and the creative process, touching on issues such as whether an author's personal life should inform their work, and whether an author can be pigeonholed into a single thematic thread.

As Leonard becomes more invested in Heather, these themes end up leading all the characters reaching pivotal decisions in their lives, paralleling the thrust of Leonard's early work around personal freedom.

Langella gives a fine performance as Leonard, who sees his time running out, and wonders if he has enough time, energy, and creativity left to finish one last book. Lauren Ambrose leaves Six Feet Under behind her as Heather, a driven but self-centered woman who wants to fit Leonard's books into her own preconceived notions and feelings, dismissing as less important those that don't fit the mold.

Lily Taylor was great as Ariel, a woman wanting the closeness and depth of relationship that she can't get from her father, so much so that she is willing to subordinate her own wants and needs. Adrian Lester plays Casey as the exact opposite of Ariel, a man who enjoys his relationship with Ariel, but not at the expense of his own dreams. Ariel doesn't come across as a victim; there's a hint of strength under the surface. And Casey doesn't come across as a complete jerk; there's a genuine love there that he doesn't fully appreciate.

All-in-all, Starting Out in the Evening ends up the night as an enjoyable movie, with good performances all around.

STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING is a quietly moving work of art, a film adapted from Brian Morton's novel by screenwriters Fred Parnes and Andrew Wagner and directed by Andrew Wagner that dares to take us to the wall with decisions we make about how we conduct our lives and negotiate the changes that can either be stumbling blocks or stimuli for creative awareness, It has much to say about the creative process of writing, a theme upon which it first appears to be based, but it more importantly urges us to examine how we live - how we make use of this moment of time in which we inhabit a body in the universe.

Leonard Schiller (in an extraordinarily understated performance by Frank Langella) is an aging author, a man whose first two novels seem to set the literary world on fire, but whose next two novels languished on the shelves and slipped into the same plane of obscurity Schiller finds his life since the death of hi wife. He has a daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor in another richly hued performance) who is nearing age forty and is unable to bond permanently with a man because of her obsession with having children before her biological clock ticks past fertility. Into their lives comes Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose), a bright young graduate student who has elected to write her master's thesis on the works of Leonard Schiller. Schiller is absorbed in writing what may be his last novel and can't be bothered with Heather's plea for a series of interviews. But curiosity intervenes and soon heather and Leonard are involved in the process of interviewing, a process which gradually builds into overtones of heather' physical as well as intellectual attraction to Leonard. Meanwhile Ariel observes the process that seems to be infusing life into her father and encourages her to exit her current relationship with Victor (Michael Cumpsty) and re-connect with the true love of her life Casey (Adrian Lester), a man she loves but who refuses to give her the children she so desperately wants. The manner in these characters interact and learn from each other the importance of sharing Life instead of obsessing with selfish goals brings the drama to a rather open-ended close, another factor that makes this story significantly better than most themes of May-December romance and unilateral coping with self centered directions.

The pleasures of this film are many, but among the finest is the quality of acting by Langella, Taylor, Ambrose, and Lester. In many ways the story is a parallax of views of life as art that subtly intertwine like a fine string quartet. Why this film was ignored by the Oscars only suggests that movies for the mind take second place to movies for the merriment of entertainment. For people who enjoy the challenge of a meaty story, this film is a must. Grady Harp