Settling into my plush stadium-configured seat to see Evening, the star-studded new film adaptation of Susan Minot's novel of the same name, it was clear who the target audience was: old ladies and weepy-eyed girls. And me, the lone gay boy in awe of the distinguished actresses on parade.
The film has a cast that's to die for: Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Natasha Richardson, Mamie Gummer, Eileen Atkins, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close. Wow. I saw three of these people (Redgrave, Streep, and Dancy) on New York stages this year, and each impressed me far more in a theatrical environment. Together, they try their best, but there are but a few glimmers of truth present in this rather disjointed film.
This overcalculated weeper did little for me overall. Almost every member of the cast was in some way or another able to transcend their limitations to make some sort of an impression onscreen; I don't blame them for the overall debacle. I never really felt hopelessly bored, because the actresses were trying their absolute hardest to make what they could of this project. I just felt slightly embarrassed for the hardworking cast.
The movie is about Redgrave (and as her younger self, Danes), who's dying, and her reminiscences over her regrets on the day of her friend Streep's (as her younger self, Gummer's) wedding. Redgrave's daughters, Collette and Richardson, also figure prominently in a present-day storyline that's far weaker than the flashback portions, which involve Danes's involvement with Hugh Dancy and Patrick Wilson, the drunk and the handsome doctor respectively. Sound sort of drippy? Well, it is.
I fault several people with the failure of this movie to hit its mark. Though I've never read the novel of the same name, Minot (who adapted her own book) and her collaborator Michael Cunningham (who wrote The Hours, which was adapted into such a fine film) seem to show little sense of the pacing that their flashback-heavy story should display. The flashbacks seem to come at awkward moments, and the proceedings return to the present day in a haphazard fashion. It's clear that David Hare, who adapted Cunningham's The Hours (which featured another star-studded cast: Streep, Collette, and Danes from Evening, as well as Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore) to such fine effect, would have been a far better choice as screenwriter for Evening. Hare was able to thread together three relatively divergent storylines and keep an audience totally compelled throughout. It's no small feat, as Cunningham and Minot have hopefully learned.
In spite of insurmountable pacing problems, there are bits and pieces of dialogue that come across well, particularly between Streep and Redgrave. But the director, Lajos Koltai, a relative newcomer to the director's chair, does everything he can to mess things up. It seems as if all of the actresses have been instructed to ham it up a bit, and the moodiness of the film makes the whole thing seem like a big overstuffed cream puff with extra powdered sugar on top just to ensure that you leave in tears (which I didn't, though several girls in my row seemed thus effected). The silly Lifetime movie-style music didn't help add much-needed ingenuity to the story at hand.
I tried my absolute hardest to enjoy this movie. I wanted very much to think that the reviewers were probably missing something when they blasted this film so, but I hate to admit that they were mostly right. Though I was delighted to see Streep and her daughter Mamie Gummer playing the older and younger versions of the character Lila, and I also enjoyed seeing Vanessa Redgrave and her daughter Natasha Richardson as mother and daughter, the all-star cast couldn't weave a magnificent tapestry out of the disparate threads they were given. It's a royal shame.
Rent The Hours instead.
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