Starting Out In The Evening Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES PLOT SUMMARY
Against the backdrop of Manhattan's changing literary and publishing world, aging novelist Leonard Schiller is asked by Heather Wolfe, a graduate student and budding literary critic, to agree to interviews. He's reluctant to spend the time: his health is failing and he wants to finish one more book. Also he's worried about his daughter, Ariel, who's approaching 40, underemployed, single and wanting a child. But he agrees, hoping Heather can help resurrect interest in his work. As Heather probes Frank's writing and his past, Ariel reconnects to a former lover. Emotions can be raw and messy, and as relationships change, who gets the better part of the bargain?
| Karl Bury | Frederick |
| Sean T. Krishnan | Ravadip Patel |
| Frank Langella | Leonard Schiller |
| Adrian Lester | Casey |
| Jeff McCarthy | Charles |
| Jerry Walsh | Bartender |
| Joel West | |
| Lauren Ambrose | Heather |
| Anitha Gandhi | Chelsea |
| Jessica Hecht | Sandra Bennett |
| Lili Taylor | Ariel Schiller |
| Andrew Wagner |
6.30 out of 10 (166 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Writer's block
posted on 25 Jun 2009A typically strong and thoughtful performance by the great Frank Langella and good supporting actors make this study of a once promising New York Jewish novelist in decline worth watching, but stagnation mars the plot and the film. Leonard Schiller lives alone in a comfortable apartment on the Upper West Side. He's retired from a life of teaching, his earlier novels are all out of print, and he has been struggling for years to complete the latest one. He's regularly visited by his daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor), a woman on the cusp of forty, once passionate about dancing, who has settled into teaching Pilates and yoga. She has wanted to have a baby before her biological clock runs out, but her man wasn't willing and fled to Chicago. Along comes an aggressive young redhead from Brown named Heather (Lauren Ambrose) to interview Leonard for her MA thesis on his work. She stirs things up for a while. But then they settle back to where they were.Leonard is so shut down you want to shake him. Langella makes a powerful impression—he's what you remember after the movie's over—but you wish he'd let the character breathe a bit more. The film's most memorable scenes are certainly those in which he and Heather timidly touch and the merest shadow of a May-December romance briefly appears, surprising Leonard and us.The heart of the story, however, is what role Leonard's life has had in his art, and how his dedication to the art may have stunted his life and the lives of those around them. The screenplay (and presumably the book by Brian Morton on which Fred Parnes and Wagner based it) valiantly tries to deal with a novelist in terms of his novels—only the approach is hardly what you could call "literary." Heather turns out to love this writer because strong women characters in his first two books inspired her to break with a clingy boyfriend and go away to college. Schiller's first novels "set her free." His second two novels she can't understand because they changed focus to politics and the strong, independent women dropped out. Wanting to get a handle on that, Heather learns it happened because Schiller's wife died. Prying eventually reveals that neither the wife nor the marriage was as ideal as Schiller represents them. Schiller fights Heather's investigations every step of the way, and sensibly opposes her simplistic biographical approach. He ends by dismissing her thinking and her thesis with remarkable detachment, considering her attentions flattered him. Nonetheless Heather's interest and warmth and eventually what seems to be her love seem to reinvigorate him—for a while, anyway. In the end it all appears to have been too much for him.Ariel seems a nice contrast to her father, lively and natural; and Taylor is well cast for the role. The Ariel subplot injects life into what might be a numbing portrait. But as time goes on it's clear Ariel is just as stuck as Leonard but without any creative accomplishments behind her. In a moment of crisis she calls an old number and finds that Casey (Adrian Lester), her African American ex-lover, is back in town and ready to resume the relationship. Appropriately for the story's themes, he's a leftist intellectual involved with a journal. It emerges that personally he's as stuck as everybody else. Things still have to be on his terms.'Evening's' literary details are authentic as far as they go. There are some receptions with schmoozing by Heather, and the identity of a once-respected has-been is well established for Schiller. He presses the literary criticism of Lionel Trilling, Irving Howe, and Edmond Wilson on his young admirer. If she's made a specialty of his work and his period, wouldn't she know about them? Whether intended or not, Heather comes across as strong and vibrant, but direct and confrontational to the point of rudeness and disrespect, and shallow as a scholar. One review of this film has suggested she's more like a tabloid journalist. And she is ambitious enough to try to get her MA summary published as a piece in The Village Voice. She keeps claiming she can get Leonard's books back into print. Surprisingly, after becoming a part of Schiller's life, which she is obviously obsessed with, she drops out of it, just when he's in trouble. Schiller's Jewishness is a routine declaration; the screenplay forgets to give him a life that bears it out. Ultimately the movie is as frustrating as the situations of the principals. It promises more than it performs. Langella isn't perfectly cast. He manages to appear stubborn and defeated, but he looks too robust (and too young) for his character. His acting commands attention always, here in its very understatement it's a marvel. But it's too consistent: you still want to shake him. Ultimately you wonder why a film should revolve around such a character. Despite the best intentions, various things have gone wrong.
Strong acting, but flawed concept
posted on 25 Jun 2009Firstly, the previous posts did a wonderful job outlining this film as well as bringing up some of the same comments I would like to make, so I will content myself with a rant. I appreciated this film on many levels, but kept getting caught up in what did not ring true with the concept based on these specific characters. I thought all the characters were beautifully played and felt that the subplot involving the author, Leonard Schiller's, daughter Ariel and her relationships was excellent and revealing, but thought that the grad. student, Heather (Lauren Ambrose), was misdirected/miswritten. Ambrose's character is instantly recognizable as that adoring woman in the the front row of a literary reading/university classroom slavishly adoring the author/professor and mentally stripping him to his skivvies. She comes off as an immature student who has read widely and yet not thought deeply. She is completely unaware of this herself and believes that she has complete understanding of Leonard Schiller, her favorite author, as well as of any other literati one cares to name. She is an intensely irritating, almost unbalanced, intellectual parvenu. Schiller does not seem to recognize her basic superficiality and presumption, which seems odd in a well-known author and university professor- again, she is a common type. My basic difficulty with the film lies in her role as an impetus of change. To give the character credit, she does have one good insight into Schiller and his writing, but her inability to let her preconceptions about him and his work go and deal with both honestly leave the audience with the impression of a shallow woman who has magically managed to fire the author with new life. While I tore this movie to shreds when watching it, it did an amazing job of keeping up the suspense: a difficult trick in a restrained and quiet film. It has also kept me thinking and made me write this review, so... My own feeling (and it seemed to be that of most audience members on exiting) was that Heather was just too unlikable and creepy for most audiences.
Very slow existential drama about an old writer
posted on 23 Jun 2009I am sorry, but this film was just incredibly slow. 110 minutes of boredom. To be frank, I only watched because lovely Lauren Ambrose was in it, but her role was abysmally boring (and badly written, I might say) so it didn't count for much. I am not saying too much about Frank Langella here because he was always a decent actor; I expect him to play well.The plot itself concerns an old writer and the people around him. The "evening" in the title regards the period in his life. New things can start, even in the evening. It is not that the movie is bad. I once wanted to become a writer and part of the film was even interesting to me, but in the end, being honest with myself and the people reading my review, the film was below average.
Life. How do you value life?
posted on 17 Jun 2009There are some things in life that become mundane or easy to let go and we need someone to help us remember and bring back LIFE to whatever it is we do or feel; you can have your own opinions about how it gets done; the main thing in this story is that it gets DONE, some of the lines in this film will stay with me forever but the main one and the one I think has do to most with the film is that you can not define a person by the events or decisions that they make in their lifetime, the writer and the daughter's boyfriend give each other's LIFE back to one another by not judging each other anymore and start to value LIFE. He brings back his writing (LIFE); and Casey brings back his love for Ariel (LIFE).How the characters played their roll or how the script writers picked their lines or the relevance or irrelevance of some scenes are secondary; the message is bigger than that LOVE YOUR PARTNER NO MATTER WHAT AND LIFE IS ONLY LIVED ONCE SO SIT DOWN AND TYPE.
Ending Up In The Neighborhood
posted on 22 May 2009Starting Out In The Evening is a film high on aspirations, but short on substance. It is among a small list of films to come out in recent years that attempt to understand the world surrounding a literary genius. While the movie is a nice study of human relationships, it is not so successful in portraying its central characters: an aging writer and a young academic. The story essentially deals with the fallout from Leonard Schiller's life as a writer. His personal shortcomings, as both father and husband, are to be read as essential to his success as a writer. Similarly, his writing is shown to have fatally wounded his daughter, as she takes up with men who make her invisible, just as he had done while writing his novels. Put another way, his daughter has learned to subordinate herself to the dreams of others; and deep down Schiller knows this. We, of course, learn that contradictions are almost always visible, and almost always irritating, because they illuminate our own hypocrisy. This is why Schiller dislikes Casey. But Schiller, in a predictable turn, is forced to undergo change when Casey disproves his idea "that people never change," by taking him to the hospital and showing him kindness at a time of great vulnerability. Yet, this sudden change of heart is too predictable to be believable. I feel like the characters in this film grew personally, but their growth always felt forced: they grew in ways that were to be expected and all at pace with the narrative. Real life is rarely like that.My biggest complaint about the film is on the authenticity of the main characters: Leonard and Heather. As a graduate student, of literature, I found it amusing that references to great works, and one-liners about literary style were invoked to give credibility to these two characters. I never really felt that Leonard was actually a writer; I only felt that I was supposed to believe he was a writer because he had lots of books and a typewriter in his study. Similarly, Heather didn't seem like an academic; she seemed like a girl at a dinner party who could feign literary erudition. Heather and Leonard's conversations were laughable, especially when the subject of their conversations is literature. This aspect of the film was disappointing because I was hoping to see a study of writing process and imagination; I was also hoping to see an honest portrayal of a burgeoning intellectual. So I was very disappointed to see contrived dialog in substitution for believable character detail. I think the film could have been strengthened if we had seen more of Leonard writing and more of Heather reading. For example, when Heather opened one of Schiller's novels, there wasn't a note or mark or anything in the margins. The book looked brand new; it didn't look like it had been "read to death." I may be nitpicking here, but little details like this could have made the film more authentic—and wasn't that the goal? I enjoyed the film for its look into our fickle lives and relationships, but I came into it with an expectation that I would learn about a writer and his world. Yet, I only got to live in the aftermath of his world. I wanted to see Schiller labor over the keys of his manual typewriter, in his quiet desperation to solidify his literary legacy—and in the process his life. Instead, I got to see Ariel, his daughter, struggle to right herself in the aftermath of his neglect; I got to see a pseudo-intellectual find herself in pursuit of her thesis; and I got to see an old man find resolve in his darkest hour. E.M Forester says that "what is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote." Starting Out In The Evening was supposed to take us to the "heart" of Leonard Schiller, but it instead, took us to the periphery.
Excellent Study of Youth vs. Wisdom
posted on 12 May 2009I think I spent more time readings User Comments about SOITE than I ever have before. But first I read Roger Ebert's review, whose opinion I so highly value. This film is nothing but a gem. The character of Leonard just pulls you into his living room, despite the fact that you might find him intimidating. Such a solitary, insulated life, though neither self-absorbed nor elitist! Such commitment to the ideal of literature! Leonard is able to keep life at a distance from his work while, as far as I could see, remaining a gentleman whose shortcomings, if mildly tragic, are nonetheless human.Like many of us who've commented on SOITE, Frank Langella's Leonard Schiller was enough to - by itself - keep us captivated. On the other hand, there sure were different takes on what this movie was supposed to be about. I saw it as a simple contrast of the folly of youth vs the wisdom of age. Heather is truly presumptuous, impetuous and determined to produce an cataclysmic event; i.e., whether the basis for such exists or not.Leonard is stoic, reserved and not so much resigned as compromising of life's indignities. But Heather betrays her own academic pretensions by employing, whether consciously or not,her physical beauty. And Leonard, however shrewd, is still human. It should not be said that Heather is devious or manipulative or that Leonard falls from his perch. Rather, its a painting of youth putting life to the test versus an older's person's temporary suspension of the fact that life is neither a game nor a test but a journey best endured by dignity. To this end, Leonard's smack to Heather's cheek is worth a dozen RAMBO movies.But I have to agree with Filmfan92 that daughter Ariel's subplot just didn't fit. It was hardly necessary and, to me, functioned as a distraction. Ariel and her boyfriend garner little sympathy and come across as somewhat self-indulgent. I am guessing that the novel meshed these two plots together better than did this film.
Fine effort by Langella, overcome by clichés
posted on 28 Apr 2009Starting Out In the Evening isn't a very good movie, but Frank Langella is very good in it. It's almost as if he is acting in a different film from everyone else: his portrayal of the once-famous, aging author is nuanced and complex even has a touch of grandeur. The movie is insistently slow but he is worth watching.The rest of the movie is a pile of lumpy clichés, overwritten dialogue wasted on underdeveloped characters: un-appreciated self-sacrificing biological-clock-ticking daughter (Lili Taylor) sleeping with the wrong guys and yearning for baby before it's too late; self-indulgent fatuous-elitist editor (Adrian Lester) who uses the daughter without respecting her until he is redeemed, apparently, by a single afternoon of menial good deeds; red-haired hot-intellectual grad-student vixen (Lauren Ambrose) who uses her sex appeal to manipulate the author for her own advancement. And when the ailing Langella is shown stretched out silently in bed, unfortunately I could not help but think, "There Lies Dracula, a washed-up New York writer."
Most Overrated Self-Indulgent Movie in Years
posted on 20 Apr 2009I saw this film at a preview screening, before it was ever released. I was sure that the movie would be critically panned, as this is movie is exactly as it has been described in the title of this comment. Imagine my surprise when I discover that this film's being called "An Indie Darling," and is getting rather decent reviews! Throughout the entire movie, you have the feeling that the screenwriters were thinking "Oh, this will be good!" For example, when Langella hits Ambrose instead of kissing her, the moment was not dramatic or surprising, but you could sense that you were SUPPOSED to be shocked. Which brings up another problem- is this movie supposed to be controversial? Having this unconventional romance is not shocking- but simply confusing. What does the young girl find attractive about this author? At first, I thought she was supposed to have some connection with him because she instantly understood him by reading his books- but then it turns out that she doesn't understand him at all? It also drags. None of the characters change at all- they simply remain the same even though there were many moments that they could have experienced some kind of transformation. Leonard Schiller is not remarkably different after his stroke. The best example of this is when the boyfriend supposedly changes his way of life to be with Lili Taylor. But, there's no noticeable difference. He had been a nice guy and he becomes... a nice guy. Where's the transformation? Where did this epiphany come from? This makes all of the characters one dimensional and you couldn't care less about any of them. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind films where the characters are unlikeable- as long as you have some feelings about how they end up. I just didn't care what happened to any of these characters.As for the cast, Frank Langella is quite good. He perfectly captures Schiller. But, the rest of the cast falls flat. They're not bad, and in fact a lot of the actors (especially Lauren Ambrose) show potential. I'd be very interested in seeing them in other movies. The problem is that their characters are so blah that none of them end up doing anything to show any true talent.It's a complete waste of time, but that's only my opinion. Obviously, some people like this film, but if it's the type of film that you're interested in, there are plenty of other similar films which are done much better and are not so pretentious.
Interesting, Intelligent film.
posted on 11 Mar 2009This film hits some beautiful notes. The pace is intimate and honest. I wish the screenwriter was able to take the main relationship between the author and the grad student into another direction though, something, well, more extraordinary. I'll let you think about that.An intelligent film never the less. One almost has to watch it not for the controlling idea but rather, for the bits and pieces of what is said between people, because these are pretty real characters who do turn into people.The film does not revolve around one dramatic value, but manages to cast some light in various places which shimmers nicely all around. Good job.
Langella's Superb Work Anchors the Rare Film That Captures the Solitude of the Writing Process
posted on 05 Mar 2009It should come as no surprise that this quietly affecting character study barely left a trace in theaters last year since movies about literature and the writing process are hardly fodder for young teenaged boys looking for outsized CGI-saturated extravaganzas. However, co-writer/director Andrew Wagner's ("The Talent Given Us") sophomore effort benefits immeasurably from Frank Langella's deeply nuanced performance as a once-renowned novelist long forgotten and facing his own mortality as he attempts to finish a valedictorian work ten years in development. With his recognizably sonorous voice and intensely watchful manner, the 68-year-old actor has never been known for playing sympathetic roles, but he seizes the heart of a becalmed man so engulfed in the creative process that he reacts to any intrusion upon it with a subtle, leonine fury. It's been nearly four decades since his film debut as the egotistical, caddish writer in Frank Perry's "Diary of a Mad Housewife", but what a treat to see him bookend that performance with this one.Langella portrays New York-based Leonard Schiller, whose four published novels have been out of print for years. In declining health, Schiller tries to interest a publisher friend in his latest, yet-to-be-completed novel, but he is told there is no market for literary-type novels. Precipitously, an enthusiastic graduate student named Heather Wolfe walks into Schiller's intensely private life to request a series of interviews for a masters thesis she wants to write about him. She is such an unabashed fan that her goal is no less than having Schiller rediscovered. The author is initially resistant, but he wears down under her coquettish persistence. At the same time, Schiller's self-loathing daughter Ariel has grown up being used to playing second-fiddle to her father's work. Single and closing in on forty, she hears her biological clock ticking as she resuscitates an embattled relationship with her estranged lover Casey, who is equally vehement about not having children. The plot threads eventually mesh when Schiller opens up to Heather and realizes how dormant he has kept his feelings since his wife's death over two decades earlier.Beyond Langella is a trio of solid performances though none nearly as impressive as his. Lauren Ambrose ("Six Feet Under") captures Heather's youthful vigor and innate intelligence, but I found her use of Lolita-style wiles to be a bit mechanical within the scheme of the storyline. Always worth watching, Lili Taylor is on pretty familiar territory as the conflicted Ariel, but she manages to bring her likeably neurotic manner to the role. I haven't seen Adrian Lester since Mike Nichols' "Primary Colors", but he's a welcome addition here as the slow-to-evolve Casey, especially in a tense small-talk scene with Schiller during Ariel's birthday celebration. In fact, much of the dialogue by Wagner and co-writer Fred Parnes has a smart, insightful quality that doesn't call undue attention to the intellectual observations of the characters. Even more, their strong screenplay makes the series of rude awakenings toward the end resonate with a combination of heart and necessary harshness. The 2008 DVD is short on extras - Wagner's thoughtful commentary and the theatrical trailer - but this small-scale film is well worth discovering, especially to see Langella at the very top of his game.
Good, slow-moving character study. Finding Schiller.
posted on 13 Feb 2009Many of the critic comments on this movie were in praise of the acting of Frank Langella. Here he is Jewish author Leonard Schiller who had two early novels that were great successes, two more which were less popular, and now had been working on perhaps his last novel for a long time. It seems that he can't find the inspiration to have his characters do something interesting. So his marketability has waned and has difficulty, even among close friends, finding someone interested in publishing his book, that is if he ever finishes it. Enter Lauren Ambrose as literary graduate student Heather Wolfe. She is clearly a big fan of Schiller's and is doing her thesis on him and his works. At first saying he was too busy writing his novel to take time to cooperate with her, he relents to her charm and adoration.But Heather has a difficult time penetrating the mind of this man of few words, and who does not easily open up to his inner, deeper thoughts. Still she persists and makes progress. The other story involves Lili Taylor as the author's daughter Ariel Schiller. She has sort of put her life on hold because she is in love with a man who is adamant that he does not want children. Adrian Lester is her love interest Casey Davis.While this movie has some similar themes as "Finding Forrester", there is no "action". It is a somewhat slow study of these four characters and their interactions. It is how an older man opening up to a younger woman can find his lost inspiration. It is how a man and woman in love but with incompatible goals can try to work out a compromise, if they really love each other.Good movie.
The best American film of the year, so far
posted on 07 Feb 2009So far, this has been the most satisfying film of 2007. It is a chamber piece, and Frank Langella's superb performance is noteworthy as much for his hesitations before he speaks,and his silences, as it is for what he says. It is the work of a master. I found the performance of his daughter interesting and plausible. The only character who seemed a cut below the rest, although still competent, was that of Heather, the ambitious graduate student. It may not have been solely her fault. Although the characters are textured, they somehow seem to exist solely in the scenes in which they appear. Heather, an Ivy League graduate, is working on her doctorate, but lives in New Jersey. She seems never to have a conference with her thesis adviser, let alone attend a university. It is difficult to imagine just how her thesis is going to bring the author's work back into print. Yet, she seems to fit right into the New York literary scene. Her working hypothesis, although the film rejects it,is suggested by F.Scott Fitzgerald; it seems to apply to most of the important writers. And it seems to be the framework of the lives of the novelist, his daughter and the other characters. Only the boyfriend seems to care for a later book . Oh, (and the spoiler?) he slaps her because she is clearly throwing the bull by mouthing compliments on his latest effort, when he clearly sees that she is insincere. She doesn't even care for half his later output, as he notes when he reads her draft. The only false note is how he he failed to spot her callowness from the start. But even brilliant novelists are not immune to flattery. On the whole, the best picture of the year. Which tells you as much about this crop as it does about the film.
Romanticized and Clichéd Portrait
posted on 16 Jan 2009I'm not a player in the literary world, so I can't really, perhaps, accurately judge the validity of the story line. But it all seemed a bit of a fraud to me and more a romanticized and clichéd portrait of a precious literary world in New York City than any deep exploration of a writer's mind or process or even any kind of relationship with an admiring critic. Overall the acting was good but very uneven. Langella, Ambrose, and Taylor had good moments but in many places went overboard and out of control in jarring, angry overacted histrionics. Ambrose as the naïve graduate student seemed terribly stylized throughout and mostly came off as an obnoxious twit I thought, and someone that Langella as the accomplished writer would never have allowed into his space, much less become attracted to. Taylor and her neuroses as a 40 year old childless woman seemed a bit tired and overdone as well as a significant thematic distraction. The actor I thought stole the show was the fellow who played Taylor's boyfriend, Casey. His character was always consistent and convincing and seems an impressive actor. But overall the story always seemed like some sort of stereotypical view of the literary world manifested by an old writer sitting at a typewriter keyboard, pecking away on 8 1/2x11 sheets of paper. That's such a sentimental early 20th century image and barely seems realistic to me in today's world, even if you are supposed to be 70 years old or thereabouts. And Ambrose's character always seemed to be more the "star idolizer" than any serious graduate student writing a thesis. So I left the theater feeling that I had seen some sort of modern TV soap opera about "Henry James", rather than a serious portrait of the interaction between any literary student and master.
'The Madness of Art'
posted on 25 Dec 2008STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING is a quietly moving work of art, a film adapted from Brian Morton's novel by screenwriters Fred Parnes and Andrew Wagner and directed by Andrew Wagner that dares to take us to the wall with decisions we make about how we conduct our lives and negotiate the changes that can either be stumbling blocks or stimuli for creative awareness, It has much to say about the creative process of writing, a theme upon which it first appears to be based, but it more importantly urges us to examine how we live - how we make use of this moment of time in which we inhabit a body in the universe. Leonard Schiller (in an extraordinarily understated performance by Frank Langella) is an aging author, a man whose first two novels seem to set the literary world on fire, but whose next two novels languished on the shelves and slipped into the same plane of obscurity Schiller finds his life since the death of hi wife. He has a daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor in another richly hued performance) who is nearing age forty and is unable to bond permanently with a man because of her obsession with having children before her biological clock ticks past fertility. Into their lives comes Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose), a bright young graduate student who has elected to write her master's thesis on the works of Leonard Schiller. Schiller is absorbed in writing what may be his last novel and can't be bothered with Heather's plea for a series of interviews. But curiosity intervenes and soon heather and Leonard are involved in the process of interviewing, a process which gradually builds into overtones of heather' physical as well as intellectual attraction to Leonard. Meanwhile Ariel observes the process that seems to be infusing life into her father and encourages her to exit her current relationship with Victor (Michael Cumpsty) and re-connect with the true love of her life Casey (Adrian Lester), a man she loves but who refuses to give her the children she so desperately wants. The manner in these characters interact and learn from each other the importance of sharing Life instead of obsessing with selfish goals brings the drama to a rather open-ended close, another factor that makes this story significantly better than most themes of May-December romance and unilateral coping with self centered directions. The pleasures of this film are many, but among the finest is the quality of acting by Langella, Taylor, Ambrose, and Lester. In many ways the story is a parallax of views of life as art that subtly intertwine like a fine string quartet. Why this film was ignored by the Oscars only suggests that movies for the mind take second place to movies for the merriment of entertainment. For people who enjoy the challenge of a meaty story, this film is a must. Grady Harp
Notes from 2007 TIFF
posted on 23 Dec 2008I saw this film at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.Starting Out in the Evening is based on the novel by Brian Morton, and stars Frank Langella in an understated role as Leonard Schiller, a once great novelist and now-retired literary professor. His previous books now long out-of-print, Leonard is struggling to finish his latest novel, a decade and counting in the making. Further distracting him from his novel is his genial but occasionally strained relationship with his daughter Ariel (Lily Taylor), who is nearing 40 and wanting a baby, but stuck back in a relationship with her ex-boyfriend Casey (Adrian Lester), who is most decidedly against the idea.Another complication comes in the form of a young grad student, Heather (Lauren Ambrose), who has made Leonard the subject of her master's thesis. Heather is determined to discover the overriding theme in Schiller's work, the early part of which inspired her to pursue her dreams in college. The conversations that Leonard and Heather have cover the gamut of literary criticism and the creative process, touching on issues such as whether an author's personal life should inform their work, and whether an author can be pigeonholed into a single thematic thread.As Leonard becomes more invested in Heather, these themes end up leading all the characters reaching pivotal decisions in their lives, paralleling the thrust of Leonard's early work around personal freedom.Langella gives a fine performance as Leonard, who sees his time running out, and wonders if he has enough time, energy, and creativity left to finish one last book. Lauren Ambrose leaves Six Feet Under behind her as Heather, a driven but self-centered woman who wants to fit Leonard's books into her own preconceived notions and feelings, dismissing as less important those that don't fit the mold.Lily Taylor was great as Ariel, a woman wanting the closeness and depth of relationship that she can't get from her father, so much so that she is willing to subordinate her own wants and needs. Adrian Lester plays Casey as the exact opposite of Ariel, a man who enjoys his relationship with Ariel, but not at the expense of his own dreams. Ariel doesn't come across as a victim; there's a hint of strength under the surface. And Casey doesn't come across as a complete jerk; there's a genuine love there that he doesn't fully appreciate.All-in-all, Starting Out in the Evening ends up the night as an enjoyable movie, with good performances all around.
"small" film is big in every way but its budget
posted on 21 Dec 2008Based on a novel by Brian Morton which I'm just going to have to read now, this one came out of nowhere; I wouldn't have heard of it if not for a couple of critics (thanks Jonathan Rosenbaum and A.O. Scott), and wouldn't have seen it if those reviews didn't just -- touch something -- along with a rave from a coworker. Frank Langella, in probably the performance of his career and maybe the best male lead I saw from 2007, plays an aging New York novelist and retired professor whose work has lapsed into obscurity, but who has a fresh-faced young academic (Lauren Ambrose) writing a master's thesis on him and (naively) promising to help restore his reputation. He also has an unhappy 40ish daughter (Lili Taylor) who desperately wants a child but can't seem to find a partner who is both the right man and a wannabe father.This is a warm, lightly sentimental but never maudlin portrait of relationship problems seen through the lens of a dying urban intelligentsia -- it's New York and Jewish, but you could probably make it Chicagoan and Italian or San Francisco and gay without changing much of the meaning and heart of the piece. It's low-budget and shot on DV, and there never seems to be a wasted moment in a loving dissection of age, the literary world, compromise and regret. This film hit me very hard, these were all characters that I fell in love with and wanted to be around; those less enamored of the fading "elitist" world of the Manhattan intelligentsia probably won't get it, though I think many will concede that the relationships really ring true. Not a false note in the film for me; it's being pigeonholed or damned with faint praise in some quarters as "quiet" and "small" but in the worlds it opened up to me emotionally and mentally, it was anything but. A masterpiece.
The Writer's Life Is No Thrill Ride
posted on 17 Dec 2008Movies about writers must overcome one important obstacle. Their lives are quiet, sedentary and a little boring. "Romancing the Stone" was about a writer who was being taken on a joy ride. "Finding Forester" was about the challenge of penetrating the inner sanctum of a recluse. Movies about writers usually tell a story which has nothing to do with their craft.This movie is a genuine look into the long trudge of tapping out pages over a lifetime. This movie will not be much for the ka ching demographics. but it is an interesting look into the life of a man who has grown old perfecting his art. A young graduate student wants his time and attention. She is doing her thesis on his out-of-print books.The professor has been working on his latest novel for ten years, and there is doubt that it will ever be ready for publication or ever published. The book business does not do literature much any more.Langella has played some powerful bad guys in various movies. This is the first movie I have seen him carry as the lead. Usually, he has the look and bearing of someone in authority. He is handsome and has a resonate voice. Here, he looks and acts elderly and vulnerable. When he and the young graduate student finally become intimate, the age difference is jarring. It is clear that he is not taking advantage of her. She is very aggressive about her intentions, but he is just too old for her. She is younger than his daughter by at least ten years.There are knock-down, drag-out literary arguments which are fascinating. Such sophisticated conversation about abstract ideas is rare in current film. It isn't a pretentious film. We have seen this New York before. It is a Woody Allen cityscape without jokes or Woody. We have heard these people chat before in Woody Allen films, but, again, without the jokes. The lighting is familiar - enough light to read by.In the end, we like these people and want to know what they think about things.
a great movie about different stages in a thoughtful life
posted on 19 Nov 2008i saw this film at the austin film festival and didn't know what to expect, but i really appreciated the character study of Leonard Schiller (as masterfully played by Frank Langella) and his contrast with Lauren Ambrose's character as a young graduate student doing her master's thesis on the aging writer who is no longer appreciated and has resigned his life to a kind of monastic, slow work on a novel that he may never finish. Lili Taylor plays Langella's daughter trying to direct the course of her life as she turns 40 and re-enters a relationship with an ex, played with great thoughtfulness by Adrian Lester (who I last remember as the narrator character from Primary Colors). i wish there were more movies like this, that show people struggling to make their lives happen on their own meaningful terms, as we live our lives, thankfully without explosions and car chases for the most part. life is an education in how to live it and this film has something to say about that.
Not just for book lovers
posted on 15 Nov 2008Frank Langella gives a magnificent performance as Leonard Schiller, an aging novelist past his prime. It is rare that an actor gives of himself so completely. You have to believe that Langella identified with Schiller, even though his performance clearly shows that he is not past *his* prime.Schiller has been working on his fifth novel for over a decade and seems unable to make the necessary emotional investment in it. He remarks that his characters don't do anything interesting. But along comes starry-eyed graduate student Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose) who wants to write a thesis on Schiller and has dreams of reviving his reputation. At first Schiller rejects Wolfe's efforts to interview him, but she is persistent and Schiller ultimately gives in to her request for what appear to be several reasons: she is young and pretty; she might actually boost his reputation; she might be the stimulation he needs to fire his imagination to put some spark into his final novel.As might be expected a relationship develops between Schiller and Wolfe that goes beyond that of writer/interrogator; whether you will like this movie will depend to a large extent on how believable you find that relationship. In a broad context Schiller can be seen as a stand-in for the dying era of novelists as household names. He is fading into the night with reserved dignity and not without a final flame having been ignited. When Wolfe asks him if he thinks his novels will be read in one hundred years he questions if people will even be reading at all in a hundred years. When Wolfe offers an opinion of R.K. Narayan's writing over breakfast Schiller expresses his delight at having such a conversation, a conversation only appreciated by the cognoscenti in an era of memoirs, self-help, travel, and cook books.Schiller's neurotic daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor) is well developed and well played by Taylor.This is a quiet movie (which means that some will find it a chore to sit through) that should appeal to avid readers and academics as well as those who appreciate character development.
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Regarding the story and feminism
posted on 27 Jun 2009There is some plot revealed here, so be warned of the spoiler. One thing I think most reviewers on this site left out, is that this story tells a lot about women and women's journey to be fully equal or regain equality that was lost some centuries ago or taken away. The young critic has learned from the author how to be her own person, and not give it up for love. And the daughter is encouraged to be her own person too by the father, and even a moral person. However the daughter has already been adversely affected by male/female dynamics because her father ignored both her and her mother who left the father in a divorce. And the father encourages the daughter to not marry the man that she is in love with, because the man has shown to her, that he puts her desires and needs behind his own. So the father wants the best for his daughter, but she has problems with this, as all women do, because women are not equals yet and are trying to achieve this. Many women still sell themselves at a cheaper price, in order to have a husband and children or they are not encouraged to develop their talents and grow.