Evening

  • 2007-09-12
  • By Tim Ochser

HMMM, NICE HAIR! "Evening" is meant to be a deep drama about life and love, but it's hard to take seriously.

I'm not exactly sure why "Evening" is called "Evening." It could be that the events it relates in a series of flashbacks took place in an evening. Or it could be that it's supposed to be suggestive of a life nearing its end. Or perhaps somebody thought it sounded like one of those enigmatic one-word perfumes.
Whatever the case, you don't really care how this particular "Evening" ends. It's a melodrama that aims high but falls flat on its starry face. Anne Grant (Vanessa Redgrave) is dying. Her daughters Nina (Toni Collette) and Constance (Natasha Richardson) are by her side.

Cue a series of seamless flashbacks to 50 years ago. Young Anne (Claire Danes) is at the wedding of her best friend, a wealthy young woman set to marry a man she doesn't love because she secretly loves Harris (Patrick Wilson), a handsome and noble doctor. The story is too convoluted to explain in detail so suffice it to say that Anne is in the thick of it 's both fresh-faced young Anne and wrinkle-faced moribund Anne.
It's a shame to see such a talented cast of actors and actresses squandered in this way, most notably the wonderful Toni Collette who is becoming sadly typecast as an emotionally frustrated woman in overwrought melodramas. Meryl Streep even makes an appearance at one point to lend a bit of gravitas to proceedings. "We are mysterious creatures, aren't we?" she muses.

The whole point of the movie, and sadly movies like this always have to have a life-affirming sort of point in the end, is that the mistakes which torment us throughout our lives aren't really mistakes at all. So when we see young Anne struggling in a tiny New York kitchen with two kids in one hand and a saucepan in the other, we know that it was all for the best in the end.
"Evening" tries its best to be lyrical but ends up pitched somewhere between Mexican soap opera and Boston tea party. Some lines really knocked the wind out of me, such as when Harris tells young Anne: "You're famous to me." "Evening" is by no means the worst movie around at the moment and there are far worse ways to pass an evening. If nothing else it's fascinating to look at Claire Danes' facial expressions, which manage to capture every imaginable nuance of confusion. Especially in the scene when she cries in the rain.

Now showing in Latvia. Opens in Lithuania Sept. 13.
 

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