Starting Out in the Evening

Unlike many movies, I found myself continually wanting to know what happens next. I was not watching a movie, so much as seeing the writing process examined, explored, and enacted on the screen. The director doesn't mind taking his time to allow events to develop and unfold, and he takes us along with him. Music is used sparingly and effectively - he has faith in his actors and his material. The attention to detail was wonderful - Leonard Schiller wearing shirts and ties many many years old, using spoons and tea cups from another era, sitting on a couch from the 40's, reading by lamps with pleated shades, walls and cupboards painted many times over, using a typewriter (hearing the clack clack of the keys was music), contrasted by Heather's tic tic on her laptop, her messy bed in the background, typing by a stylish modern lamp. Lauren Ambrose was the perfect counterpoint to Frank Langella, and the subplot with Lili Taylor as Ariel Schiller and Adrian Lester was touching and effective. At all times, the actors were perfect. They should all win Oscars, but they won't. Please don't be fooled by the paltry box office take of $600,000 - this movie is worthy of box office 100 times what it took in.

Anyone with a love of writing, good acting, and wonderful direction should see this movie. Even having Schilling's body begin to fail him rings true, and is not played for pathos.

All in all, one of the most enjoyable movie experiences of 2007.

Some writers receive early praise in their careers. Some even more talented ones never get their due because their work is not commercially satisfactory. In fact, it could be said that fame eludes a lot of brilliant authors who, as in the case of Leonard Schiller, must resort to a life of teaching in the great universities of the country. Schiller has only produced four novels, which sadly, seem to be out of print and unappreciated by even serious readers.

It is at this juncture of Leonard's life that a change occurs. When the eager young Heather, who wants to base her thesis on his books, comes to visit to ask if it could be possible to enlist him to help her with her paper. Leonard Schiller feels flattered and repulsed at the same time. He is a private man who has shunned notoriety and wants to stay that way, but ends up in going along with the young woman.

Leonard, a widower, has a daughter, Ariel, a woman in her early forties who believes her biological clock is running out of time if she is to have a baby. She had wanted to have a child with Casey, who doesn't cherish the thought of fatherhood and had broken with her. When he reappears, they renew their relationship with mixed results because Casey can't commit. This disparity is pointed out to Ariel by her father, who feels she is not getting her due.

Heather, we see moving closer and closer to Leonard. It appears inevitable they are headed for an involvement, one that he feels is more than what he wanted to get, especially with a woman way too young for him. The intensity of the feeling she provokes in him, surprises Schiller, who is in ill health, but he gives way to his fears jumping into an affair which will prove will not benefit either one of them.

"Starting Early in the Evening" is a small triumph for the team behind it, notably for director Andrew Wagner who gives the light touch the story requires. The film which is based on a Brian Morton book, which we haven't read, translates beautifully for the screen.

Frank Langella is simply marvelous playing Leonard Schiller. He is worth the price of admission. Obviously, the actor knows well how the character he is playing reacts to all the new sensations he discovers at a late age when the young woman comes into his life. Mr. Langella has never been better and more effective as he is in here. His take on this forgotten scholar is right on target.

Lauren Ambrose, whose work we have admired before, makes quite a case with her Heather. She is an eager young woman who probably has no intention of falling in love with the older man, yet, in her admiration for the author, she leaps into a serious situation that might not mean anything to her, yet, it has given Leonard a new taste in life.

Lily Taylor's Ariel is a complicated character. As the daughter, she is protective, yet, she ends up accepting a woman, much younger than her to be her father's lover. At the same time, her own life is in turmoil because of the motherhood she feels is denied to her. The brilliant Adrian Lester and Jessica Hecht add to the enjoyment of the film.

The film has a foreign film feeling to it. Andrew Wagner shows a sure hand in the final product and one can only wish him to continue along this way because he shows that he has talent and an eye for bringing out those hidden emotions in this interesting film.

i saw this film at the austin film festival and didn't know what to expect, but i really appreciated the character study of Leonard Schiller (as masterfully played by Frank Langella) and his contrast with Lauren Ambrose's character as a young graduate student doing her master's thesis on the aging writer who is no longer appreciated and has resigned his life to a kind of monastic, slow work on a novel that he may never finish. Lili Taylor plays Langella's daughter trying to direct the course of her life as she turns 40 and re-enters a relationship with an ex, played with great thoughtfulness by Adrian Lester (who I last remember as the narrator character from Primary Colors). i wish there were more movies like this, that show people struggling to make their lives happen on their own meaningful terms, as we live our lives, thankfully without explosions and car chases for the most part. life is an education in how to live it and this film has something to say about that.

A typically strong and thoughtful performance by the great Frank Langella and good supporting actors make this study of a once promising New York Jewish novelist in decline worth watching, but stagnation mars the plot and the film. Leonard Schiller lives alone in a comfortable apartment on the Upper West Side. He's retired from a life of teaching, his earlier novels are all out of print, and he has been struggling for years to complete the latest one. He's regularly visited by his daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor), a woman on the cusp of forty, once passionate about dancing, who has settled into teaching Pilates and yoga. She has wanted to have a baby before her biological clock runs out, but her man wasn't willing and fled to Chicago. Along comes an aggressive young redhead from Brown named Heather (Lauren Ambrose) to interview Leonard for her MA thesis on his work. She stirs things up for a while. But then they settle back to where they were.

Leonard is so shut down you want to shake him. Langella makes a powerful impression—he's what you remember after the movie's over—but you wish he'd let the character breathe a bit more. The film's most memorable scenes are certainly those in which he and Heather timidly touch and the merest shadow of a May-December romance briefly appears, surprising Leonard and us.

The heart of the story, however, is what role Leonard's life has had in his art, and how his dedication to the art may have stunted his life and the lives of those around them. The screenplay (and presumably the book by Brian Morton on which Fred Parnes and Wagner based it) valiantly tries to deal with a novelist in terms of his novels—only the approach is hardly what you could call "literary." Heather turns out to love this writer because strong women characters in his first two books inspired her to break with a clingy boyfriend and go away to college. Schiller's first novels "set her free." His second two novels she can't understand because they changed focus to politics and the strong, independent women dropped out. Wanting to get a handle on that, Heather learns it happened because Schiller's wife died. Prying eventually reveals that neither the wife nor the marriage was as ideal as Schiller represents them. Schiller fights Heather's investigations every step of the way, and sensibly opposes her simplistic biographical approach. He ends by dismissing her thinking and her thesis with remarkable detachment, considering her attentions flattered him. Nonetheless Heather's interest and warmth and eventually what seems to be her love seem to reinvigorate him—for a while, anyway. In the end it all appears to have been too much for him.

Ariel seems a nice contrast to her father, lively and natural; and Taylor is well cast for the role. The Ariel subplot injects life into what might be a numbing portrait. But as time goes on it's clear Ariel is just as stuck as Leonard but without any creative accomplishments behind her. In a moment of crisis she calls an old number and finds that Casey (Adrian Lester), her African American ex-lover, is back in town and ready to resume the relationship. Appropriately for the story's themes, he's a leftist intellectual involved with a journal. It emerges that personally he's as stuck as everybody else. Things still have to be on his terms.

'Evening's' literary details are authentic as far as they go. There are some receptions with schmoozing by Heather, and the identity of a once-respected has-been is well established for Schiller. He presses the literary criticism of Lionel Trilling, Irving Howe, and Edmond Wilson on his young admirer. If she's made a specialty of his work and his period, wouldn't she know about them? Whether intended or not, Heather comes across as strong and vibrant, but direct and confrontational to the point of rudeness and disrespect, and shallow as a scholar. One review of this film has suggested she's more like a tabloid journalist. And she is ambitious enough to try to get her MA summary published as a piece in The Village Voice. She keeps claiming she can get Leonard's books back into print. Surprisingly, after becoming a part of Schiller's life, which she is obviously obsessed with, she drops out of it, just when he's in trouble. Schiller's Jewishness is a routine declaration; the screenplay forgets to give him a life that bears it out. Ultimately the movie is as frustrating as the situations of the principals. It promises more than it performs. Langella isn't perfectly cast. He manages to appear stubborn and defeated, but he looks too robust (and too young) for his character. His acting commands attention always, here in its very understatement it's a marvel. But it's too consistent: you still want to shake him. Ultimately you wonder why a film should revolve around such a character. Despite the best intentions, various things have gone wrong.

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.