Evening is a slow burner, so slow in fact the credits roll before it ever gets going.
Evening (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:121
Fresh:33
Rotten:88
Average Rating:4.9/10
Consensus: Beautifully filmed, but decidedly dull, Evening is a collossal waste of a talented cast.
Rated: 12A [See Full Rating] for some thematic elements, sexual material, a brief accident scene and language
Runtime: 1 hr 57 mins
Genre: , Romance, Period Piece, Theatrical Release
Theatrical Release:21-09-2007
Synopsis: Evening unites a stellar cast, and is based on the beloved novel by Susan Minot and adapted for the screen by Ms. Minot and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham (The Hours), under the... Evening unites a stellar cast, and is based on the beloved novel by Susan Minot and adapted for the screen by Ms. Minot and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham (The Hours), under the direction of Lajos Koltai (Fateless), who was previously an Academy Award-nominated cinematographer. Evening is a deeply emotional film that illuminates the timeless love which binds mother and daughter – seen through the prism of one mother’s life as it crests with optimism, navigates a turning point, and ebbs to its close. Two pairs of real-life mothers and daughters – Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson, and Meryl Streep and Mamie Gummer – portray, respectively, a mother and her daughter and the mother’s best friend at different stages in life. Overcome by the power of memory, Ann Lord (Ms. Redgrave) reveals a long-held secret to her concerned daughters; Constance (Ms. Richardson), a content wife and mother, and Nina (Toni Collette), a restless single woman. Both are bedside when Ann calls out for the man she loved more than any other. But who is this “Harris,” wonder her daughters, and what is he to our mother? While Constance and Nina try to take stock of Ann’s life and their own lives, their mother is tended to by a night nurse (Eileen Atkins) as she journeys in her mind back to a summer weekend some fifty years ago, when she was Ann Grant (Claire Danes)… ...a young woman who has come from New York City to be maid of honor at the high-society Newport wedding of her dearest friend from college, Lila Wittenborn (Ms. Gummer). The bride-to-be is jittery, and turns to her maid of honor rather than her own mother (Glenn Close) for support. Ann stays close to her friend, yet is even closer to Lila’s irrepressible brother Buddy (Hugh Dancy). Unexpected feelings surge forth once Ann meets wedding guest Harris Arden (Patrick Wilson), a lifelong friend and intimate of the Wittenborn family. Ann’s love for Harris will change her life, and those of her daughters, forever. -- © Focus Features [More]
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Claire Danes, Patrick Wilson, Toni Collette
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Claire Danes, Patrick Wilson, Toni Collette, Natasha Richardson, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Hugh Dancy, Mamie Gummer
Director: Lajos Koltai
Director: Lajos Koltai
Screenwriter: Michael Cunningham, Susan Minot
Producer: Jeff Sharp
Composer: Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
Studio: Focus Features
Reviews for Evening
Dull. It's hard to engage with the characters, the themes are underdeveloped and the tone is flat as the waters lapping the Wittenborn beach.
Evening is a film about regrets that doesn’t say an awful lot, but somehow holds your attention with the scenes between Redgrave and Streep sure to bring a tear to your eye – or at least your mum’s.
This multi-generational chick flick may be blessed with a stellar cast but unfortunately errs on the pretentious side.
I am against the exploitation of women for sentimental screen purposes (Steel Magnolias, Crimes of the Heart). But what can you do? Here they moon and croon across a time divide.
An affected and overwrought adaptation of Susan Minot's novel about a dying woman's memories of a complicated romantic incident in her youth.
Some big names have been assembled for this old-fashioned "woman's picture" about thwarted expectations and lifelong regrets.
It's a very odd film that can discuss heart-blackening guilt, loveless marriage, pain and regret only to taper off into a dry-eyed ending.
An astounding cast and high production values make this film worth seeing, even as turns into a girly melodrama.
Recycling ideas and characters from 250 years of romantic literature without adding any new ones of its own, Evening is like dining with Jane Austen and Barbara Cartland and not being allowed to get down from the table.
An old lady takes a long time to die in this po-faced literary effort as a bed-ridden Redgrave looks back to the golden summer when her young self (Danes) found love.
The performances are oddly muted, as if the screenplay refuses to allow a fine cast full rein. But those who loved the book can be assured that it has been translated faithfully enough to the screen.
The film disintegrates into an indulgent succession of intense, fawning exchanges that overwhelm Minot’s thin and monotonous tale.
Adapting from Susan Minot’s bestseller, Hungarian director Lajos Koltai’s (Fateless) pulls together a formidable cast – Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Toni Collette – but then leaves them to wade through a sickly stew.
Emotionally unengaging, overlong and frequently dull drama, despite the best efforts of its talented cast.
Not see Evening? It's like having to say no to a Jane Austen adaptation.
While it teeters on the brink of mawkish melodrama for quite some time, this film ultimately delivers the goods, ably assisted by the arrival of Meryl Streep onscreen.
A collection of Lifetime-channel clichés arranged with the metallic precision of a machine.
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