This weeping ladydrama -- this cinematic doily, this chintz wing chair from a P-town antique boutique -- takes us to the oxymoronic world of WASP emotion.
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
Things are happening too fast to be convincing, and the romance -- rather, the one-night stand -- between Ann and Harris hardly seems worth a lifetime of regret, or two hours of your time.
Manipulative at times, but it resonates with gleaming ferocity as it unspools a story of regret, longing and resolution in two generations of women.
Everything about Evening seems engineered to liquefy moviegoers, specifically middle-age female moviegoers who miss their mothers. This would include me: I was a sloppy mess by the end.
This disappointing drama packs in too many characters, too many talky scenes, too many flashbacks.
It courts its audience with a warm story about lost loves and paths not chosen, and it boasts an array of strong performances from its top-notch ensemble.
There are few things more depressing than a weeper that doesn't make you weep. Evening creeps through its dolorous paces as prudently as an undertaker.
It took me a while to warm to these people and their self-consciously idyllic settings -- as well as to the slick direction of former cinematographer Lajos Koltai -- but I was eventually won over.
Not even a firm approach can rescue Evening from the enveloping thematic finery. It's a hopelessly classy piece of china.
All emotion registers as melodrama, though the flushed and flustered parts do not cohere into a melodramatic (i.e. generic) whole.
The handsome period design strives for authenticity, yet when the wedding party listens to a recording of 'I've Got the World on a String,' we don't hear Sinatra or Peggy Lee but 21st century neo-swingster Michael Buble.
Even the lineup of superlative thesps can't mask the pandering, manipulative ploys at the film's cheesy heart.
Evening feels artificial from the very first shot. ... It looks like a contest to see which actress can shed the [Oscar-winng] tears.
From its laughably lyrical opening to its bow-tying resolution, Lajos Koltai's Evening invites comparisons to Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movies.
The stellar inter-generational cast can't breathe sufficient life into this airless female angst mood piece to resuscitate the story.
an 'if only I had...' nostalgic romance... even the appealing performances of Danes, Wilson and Gummer are not enough to make up for a ponderous story that assigns each of its characters a predictable fate...
Woman on deathbed dredges up regrets, as does everyone around her in a turgid weeper that will engender regret in its paying audience as well.
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