CNS Movie Review: Evening

Evening

By Harry Forbes
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Whatever else you might think of "Evening" (Focus), there's no denying this is the classiest cast we've seen this season.

The film itself we found to be artful but overly studied in its portrayal of a dying woman, Ann Lord (Vanessa Redgrave), who recalls the Newport wedding of her best friend, Lila Wittenborn (Mamie Gummer), many decades ago.

As Ann Grant (now played by Claire Danes), an aspiring singer, she is maid of honor to this very reluctant bride-to-be and carries a torch for Harris Arden (Patrick Wilson), a young doctor who was the son of the blue-blooded family's housekeeper.

Ann's puppy-dog admirer is Lila's likable but alcoholic brother, Buddy (Hugh Dancy), an aspiring novelist, who harbors a repressed attraction to Harris himself. Glenn Close and Barry Bostwick head the Wittenborn clan.

In her present-day delirium, Ann had exclaimed the name "Harris," prompting wonderment on the part of her two grown daughters: the married Constance (Redgrave's real-life daughter, Natasha Richardson) and especially the single maverick Nina (Toni Collette). Was this Harris the love of their thrice-married mother's life, they wonder, or just the ravings of a dying woman? Ann's cryptic comment that she and Harris "killed" Buddy has them further perplexed.

In due time, we learn that there was indeed a romance with Harris, an encounter which would have unexpectedly tragic consequences.

Director Lajos Koltai's rendering of Susan Minot's novel is handsomely filmed. Gyula Pados' cinematography is outstanding, and there are several magical moments such as the older Ann following a luminous moth out of the house in her dream.

With predictably fine performances by a cast that also includes Eileen Atkins as the older Ann's compassionate nurse, and Meryl Streep (Gummer's real-life mother) as the mature Lila visiting the dying Ann, lying down next to her, and reminiscing about the past. Dancy is marvelous in a convincing drunk scene where he embarrasses the guests at Lila's prewedding dinner.

But the narrative often feels contrived, as sometimes happens when novels are adapted to the screen, even when it's someone such as Pulitzer Prize-winning Michael Cunningham, who wrote the script.

Events that seem plausible on paper sometimes seem less so when enacted. A reunion between the young Ann and Harris years later on a rainy New York street aims for the bittersweet quality of the Robert Redford-Barbra Streisand encounter at the end of "The Way We Were," but since the Ann-Harris fling seemed rather shoddy to begin with, the scene counts for little.

On the plus side, there are keen observations on mortality, how the actions of one generation can affect the next, and perceptive mother-daughter dynamics. That last is most memorably illustrated by a touching scene where Richardson speaks tenderly to the sleeping Ann, who then opens her eyes to share a heartbreaking empathetic moment.

The film contains an out-of-wedlock encounter, post-coital tableau, premarital pregnancy, innuendo, brief abortion discussion, alcohol abuse, some profanity and rough language, divorce, subliminal same-sex attraction, and a car accident. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at: www.usccb.org/movies.

END

Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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