Evening (film)
Encyclopedia
Evening is a 2007 German-American drama film
directed by Lajos Koltai
. The screenplay
by Susan Minot
and Michael Cunningham
is based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot
.
) reflects on her past. Her confusing comments about people she never mentioned before leave her daughters, reserved Constance (Natasha Richardson
) and restless Nina (Toni Collette
), wondering if their mother is delusional.
As a young woman in her early twenties, cabaret
singer Ann (Claire Danes
) arrives at the spacious Newport, Rhode Island
, home of her best friend Lila Wittenborn (Mamie Gummer
), who is on the verge of getting married. Lila's brother (and Ann's college friend) Buddy (Hugh Dancy
) introduces her to Harris Arden (Patrick Wilson
), the son of a former family servant. Buddy tells Ann his sister always has adored Harris, and expresses his concern that she's marrying another man out of a sense of duty rather than love. Inebriated, Buddy passes out, and as Ann and Harris chat they find themselves bonding.
On Lila's wedding day, she confesses to Ann she confronted Harris with her feelings for him and he rebuffed her, so she goes along with the ceremony as planned. At the reception, at Lila's request, Ann sings a song and is joined on stage by Harris. Afterwards Buddy, drunk again, confronts the two about their growing closeness and kisses Harris. As Lila prepares to depart with her new husband, Ann offers to take the bride away with her, but Lila refuses and leaves for her honeymoon.
Buddy admits to Ann he's had a crush on Harris since his childhood, though he also claims not to be "that way" - he denies that this would be okay as Ann assures him. He then changes the subject, confessing he has loved Ann ever since their college days, offering as proof a note she once sent him he has kept in his pocket ever since. Ann later expresses her anger at him for repressing his sexual orientation by building her up as his true love. She and Harris slip off to his secret hideaway, where the two make love.
Buddy, in search of the couple, stumbles into the road and is hit by a car. His friends find him, but too late to save his life. The following morning, Ann and Harris, oblivious to what transpired the night before, jokingly consider sailing away, but at the Wittenborn house they hear the tragic news.
In the present day, Lila (Meryl Streep
) arrives at Ann's bedside to comfort her and reminisce. Ann recalls a day when she ran into Harris in the street in New York City
. By then she had one daughter and was on the verge of moving to Los Angeles
, and he was married with a son. He intimated he still loved her before the two exchanged cordial goodbyes.
As Lila leaves, she tells Nina about Harris and reassures her that her mother did not make any mistakes in her life. Nina sits with Ann, who encourages her daughter to have a happy life. Nina finally musters up the courage to tell her boyfriend Luc she is pregnant with their child. An ecstatic Luc proudly announces the news to Constance and promises he always will be there for Nina. Their joy is interrupted by Ann's nurse, who urges the women to rush to their mother's bedside to bid her farewell.
, but according to the commentary on the DVD release of the film, director Lajos Koltai was so taken with the Newport house found by his location scouts he opted to change the setting. Tiverton and Providence, Rhode Island
, Greenwich Village
, and the Upper West Side
of Manhattan
also were used for external scenes.
The song "Time After Time
" Ann sings for Lila at the wedding was written in 1947 by Sammy Cahn
and Jule Styne
. The song "I See the Moon" she later sings to her daughters is based on a traditional nursery rhyme
.
The film is markedly different from the book, which was much darker and nihlistic
. Whereas the film presents a love story between Harris and Ann, the book portrayed Harris as a callous womanizer with whom Ann became obsessed. A significant portion of the book is dedicated to telling the stories of Ann's three doomed marriages, each of which failed, in part, because of Ann's destructive infatuation with the absent Harris. Harris himself is presented as an enigmatic and unsympathetic character who carries on multiple affairs during the course of the wedding night, intent on returning home to marry his fiancee.
The film grossed $12,406,646 in the US and $478,928 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $12,885,574.
The Present
In the San Francisco Chronicle
, Mick LaSalle
observed, "The film arrives at a pessimistic and almost nihilistic view of life as something not very important - and then invites us to take strength and comfort in the notion. It's not what you'd expect, and it's certainly not the typical message. It might be the most interesting thing about the picture."
Peter Travers
of Rolling Stone
rated the film 2½ out of a possible four stars and commented, "the actors . . . provide flashes of brilliance. Hugh Dancy scores as the plot's catalyst for tragedy. And Claire Danes is stellar as the young Ann . . . [Mamie] Gummer proves her talent is her own in a star-is-born performance that signals an exceptional career ahead."
In the St. Petersburg Times
, Steve Persall graded the film C and added, "Strong performances and an author's weak backbone make Evening a curious mistake . . . [it] is memorable only for lovely period designs and for casting mothers and daughters to ensure better continuity."
Justin Chang of Variety
said, "The more immediate problem with this ambitious, elliptical film is Koltai and editor Allyson C. Johnson's difficulty in establishing a narrative rhythm, as the back-and-forth shifts in time that seemed delicately free-associative on the page are rendered with considerably less grace onscreen. In ways reminiscent of Stephen Daldry
's film of The Hours
, the telling connections between past and present feel calculated rather than authentically illuminating."
In Time
, Richard Schickel
said the film "represents perhaps the greatest diva round-up in modern movie history . . . Wow, you might think, how bad can that be? To which one responds, after two lugubrious hours in their company, really awful. Rarely have so many gifted women labored so tastefully to bring forth such a wee, lockjawed mouse . . . This may in part because it was Michael Cunningham, author of the book The Hours
, another stupefying exercise in unspoken angst
, who was hired to punch up the script Susan Minot was trying to make out of her novel. They share screenplay credit for Evening, but even in the press kit you can sense her loathing for his work. He's sort of Henry James
without the cojones
and definitely the most constipated sensibility the literary community has lately been in awe of. But I suspect that the director, Lajos Koltai, a Hungarian, has even more to do with the film's inertness."
Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly rated Evening as the 2nd worst movie of 2007.
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by Lajos Koltai
Lajos Koltai
Lajos Koltai, ASC, HSC, is a Hungarian cinematographer and film director best known for his work with legendary Hungarian director Istvan Szabo, and Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore...
. The screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by Susan Minot
Susan Minot
Susan Minot is a prize-winning American novelist and short story writer.Minot was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She graduated from Concord Academy and then attended Brown University, where she studied writing and painting; in 1983 she graduated from Columbia University School of the Arts with...
and Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham is an American writer, best known for his 1998 novel The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999.-Early life and education:...
is based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot
Susan Minot
Susan Minot is a prize-winning American novelist and short story writer.Minot was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She graduated from Concord Academy and then attended Brown University, where she studied writing and painting; in 1983 she graduated from Columbia University School of the Arts with...
.
Plot
The film alternates between two time periods, the 1950s and the present, in which a dying Ann Grant Lord (Vanessa RedgraveVanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
) reflects on her past. Her confusing comments about people she never mentioned before leave her daughters, reserved Constance (Natasha Richardson
Natasha Richardson
Natasha Jane Richardson was an English actress of stage and screen. A member of the Redgrave family, she was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
) and restless Nina (Toni Collette
Toni Collette
Antonia "Toni" Collette is an Australian actress and musician, known for her acting work on stage, television and film as well as a secondary career as the lead singer of the band Toni Collette & the Finish....
), wondering if their mother is delusional.
As a young woman in her early twenties, cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
singer Ann (Claire Danes
Claire Danes
Claire Catherine Danes is an American actress of television, stage and film. She has appeared in roles as diverse as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, as Kate Brewster in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as Yvaine in Stardust and as Temple Grandin in...
) arrives at the spacious Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
, home of her best friend Lila Wittenborn (Mamie Gummer
Mamie Gummer
Mary Willa "Mamie" Gummer is an American actress, and the daughter of actress Meryl Streep.-Early life:Mamie Gummer was born to actress Meryl Streep, and sculptor Don Gummer...
), who is on the verge of getting married. Lila's brother (and Ann's college friend) Buddy (Hugh Dancy
Hugh Dancy
- Early life and career :Dancy was born in Stoke-on-Trent, the son of British philosopher Jonathan Dancy, a professor at the University of Reading and at the University of Texas at Austin. His mother, Sarah, is a publisher. His brother, Jack, is a co-director of the travel company, Trufflepig...
) introduces her to Harris Arden (Patrick Wilson
Patrick Wilson (actor)
Patrick Joseph Wilson is an American actor and singer. Wilson has spent years singing lead roles in major Broadway musicals, beginning in 1996. In 2003, he appeared in the HBO mini-series Angels in America...
), the son of a former family servant. Buddy tells Ann his sister always has adored Harris, and expresses his concern that she's marrying another man out of a sense of duty rather than love. Inebriated, Buddy passes out, and as Ann and Harris chat they find themselves bonding.
On Lila's wedding day, she confesses to Ann she confronted Harris with her feelings for him and he rebuffed her, so she goes along with the ceremony as planned. At the reception, at Lila's request, Ann sings a song and is joined on stage by Harris. Afterwards Buddy, drunk again, confronts the two about their growing closeness and kisses Harris. As Lila prepares to depart with her new husband, Ann offers to take the bride away with her, but Lila refuses and leaves for her honeymoon.
Buddy admits to Ann he's had a crush on Harris since his childhood, though he also claims not to be "that way" - he denies that this would be okay as Ann assures him. He then changes the subject, confessing he has loved Ann ever since their college days, offering as proof a note she once sent him he has kept in his pocket ever since. Ann later expresses her anger at him for repressing his sexual orientation by building her up as his true love. She and Harris slip off to his secret hideaway, where the two make love.
Buddy, in search of the couple, stumbles into the road and is hit by a car. His friends find him, but too late to save his life. The following morning, Ann and Harris, oblivious to what transpired the night before, jokingly consider sailing away, but at the Wittenborn house they hear the tragic news.
In the present day, Lila (Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
) arrives at Ann's bedside to comfort her and reminisce. Ann recalls a day when she ran into Harris in the street in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. By then she had one daughter and was on the verge of moving to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and he was married with a son. He intimated he still loved her before the two exchanged cordial goodbyes.
As Lila leaves, she tells Nina about Harris and reassures her that her mother did not make any mistakes in her life. Nina sits with Ann, who encourages her daughter to have a happy life. Nina finally musters up the courage to tell her boyfriend Luc she is pregnant with their child. An ecstatic Luc proudly announces the news to Constance and promises he always will be there for Nina. Their joy is interrupted by Ann's nurse, who urges the women to rush to their mother's bedside to bid her farewell.
Production notes
The original screenplay, as was the novel, was set in MaineMaine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
, but according to the commentary on the DVD release of the film, director Lajos Koltai was so taken with the Newport house found by his location scouts he opted to change the setting. Tiverton and Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, and the Upper West Side
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...
of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
also were used for external scenes.
The song "Time After Time
Time after Time (1947 song)
"Time After Time" is a jazz standard written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne in 1947.It was introduced by Frank Sinatra in the film It Happened in Brooklyn.-Cover versions:...
" Ann sings for Lila at the wedding was written in 1947 by Sammy Cahn
Sammy Cahn
Sammy Cahn was an American lyricist, songwriter and musician. He is best known for his romantic lyrics to films and Broadway songs, as well as stand-alone songs premiered by recording companies in the Greater Los Angeles Area...
and Jule Styne
Jule Styne
Jule Styne was a British-born American songwriter especially famous for a series of Broadway musicals, which included several very well known and frequently revived shows.-Early life:...
. The song "I See the Moon" she later sings to her daughters is based on a traditional nursery rhyme
Nursery rhyme
The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...
.
The film is markedly different from the book, which was much darker and nihlistic
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
. Whereas the film presents a love story between Harris and Ann, the book portrayed Harris as a callous womanizer with whom Ann became obsessed. A significant portion of the book is dedicated to telling the stories of Ann's three doomed marriages, each of which failed, in part, because of Ann's destructive infatuation with the absent Harris. Harris himself is presented as an enigmatic and unsympathetic character who carries on multiple affairs during the course of the wedding night, intent on returning home to marry his fiancee.
The film grossed $12,406,646 in the US and $478,928 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $12,885,574.
Principal cast
The 1950s- Claire DanesClaire DanesClaire Catherine Danes is an American actress of television, stage and film. She has appeared in roles as diverse as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, as Kate Brewster in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as Yvaine in Stardust and as Temple Grandin in...
..... Ann Grant - Mamie GummerMamie GummerMary Willa "Mamie" Gummer is an American actress, and the daughter of actress Meryl Streep.-Early life:Mamie Gummer was born to actress Meryl Streep, and sculptor Don Gummer...
..... Lila Wittenborn - Patrick WilsonPatrick Wilson (actor)Patrick Joseph Wilson is an American actor and singer. Wilson has spent years singing lead roles in major Broadway musicals, beginning in 1996. In 2003, he appeared in the HBO mini-series Angels in America...
..... Harris Arden - Hugh DancyHugh Dancy- Early life and career :Dancy was born in Stoke-on-Trent, the son of British philosopher Jonathan Dancy, a professor at the University of Reading and at the University of Texas at Austin. His mother, Sarah, is a publisher. His brother, Jack, is a co-director of the travel company, Trufflepig...
..... Buddy Wittenborn - Glenn CloseGlenn CloseGlenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...
..... Mrs. Wittenborn - Barry BostwickBarry BostwickBarry Knapp Bostwick is an American actor and singer. He is known for playing Brad Majors in the 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, replacing Peter Scolari as Mr. Tyler in the sitcom What I Like About You, and playing mayor Randall Winston in the sitcom Spin City...
..... Mr. Wittenborn
The Present
- Vanessa RedgraveVanessa RedgraveVanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
..... Ann Grant Lord - Toni ColletteToni ColletteAntonia "Toni" Collette is an Australian actress and musician, known for her acting work on stage, television and film as well as a secondary career as the lead singer of the band Toni Collette & the Finish....
..... Nina Mars - Natasha RichardsonNatasha RichardsonNatasha Jane Richardson was an English actress of stage and screen. A member of the Redgrave family, she was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
..... Constance Haverford - Meryl StreepMeryl StreepMary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
..... Lila Wittenborn Ross - Ebon Moss-BachrachEbon Moss-BachrachEbon Moss-Bachrach is an American stage and screen actor. He attended high school at Amherst Regional High School in Massachusetts and graduated from Columbia University. Ebon is involved with photographer Yelena Yemchuk...
..... Luc - David CallDavid CallDavid Steven Call , is an American film and television actor- Personal life :He is a graduate student of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School.- Acting career :...
....Pip - Eileen AtkinsEileen AtkinsDame Eileen June Atkins, DBE is an English actress and occasional screenwriter.- Early life :Atkins was born in the Mothers' Hospital in Clapton, a Salvation Army women's hostel in East London...
..... Mrs. Brown, the Night Nurse - Kara F. Doherty...Chloe
Additional production credits
- Production DesignProduction designerIn film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
..... Caroline Hanania - Art DirectionArt directorThe art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
..... Jordan Jacobs - Set DecorationSet decoratorA set decorator is in charge of the set dressing on a film set, which includes the furnishings, wallpaper, lighting fixtures, and many of the other objects that will be seen in the film. Props and set dressing often overlap, but are provided by different departments...
..... Catherine Davis - Costume DesignCostume designCostume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
..... Ann RothAnn RothAnn Roth is an American costume designer for films and Broadway theatre.Born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, Roth was a Carnegie Mellon graduate who began her career as a scenery painter for the Pittsburgh Opera. She intended to remain in the field of production design until she met Irene Sharaff at the...
Critical reception
Manohla Dargis of the New York Times said, "Stuffed with actors of variable talent, burdened with false, labored dialogue and distinguished by a florid visual style better suited to fairy tales and greeting cards, this miscalculation underlines what can happen when certain literary works meet the bottom line of the movies. It also proves that not every book deserves its own film."In the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...
observed, "The film arrives at a pessimistic and almost nihilistic view of life as something not very important - and then invites us to take strength and comfort in the notion. It's not what you'd expect, and it's certainly not the typical message. It might be the most interesting thing about the picture."
Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
rated the film 2½ out of a possible four stars and commented, "the actors . . . provide flashes of brilliance. Hugh Dancy scores as the plot's catalyst for tragedy. And Claire Danes is stellar as the young Ann . . . [Mamie] Gummer proves her talent is her own in a star-is-born performance that signals an exceptional career ahead."
In the St. Petersburg Times
St. Petersburg Times
The St. Petersburg Times is a United States newspaper. It is one of two major publications serving the Tampa Bay Area, the other being The Tampa Tribune, which the Times tops in both circulation and readership. Based in St...
, Steve Persall graded the film C and added, "Strong performances and an author's weak backbone make Evening a curious mistake . . . [it] is memorable only for lovely period designs and for casting mothers and daughters to ensure better continuity."
Justin Chang of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
said, "The more immediate problem with this ambitious, elliptical film is Koltai and editor Allyson C. Johnson's difficulty in establishing a narrative rhythm, as the back-and-forth shifts in time that seemed delicately free-associative on the page are rendered with considerably less grace onscreen. In ways reminiscent of Stephen Daldry
Stephen Daldry
Stephen David Daldry, CBE is an English theatre and film director and producer, as well as a three-time Academy Award nominated and Tony Award winning director.-Early years:...
's film of The Hours
The Hours (film)
The Hours is a 2002 drama film directed by Stephen Daldry, and starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Ed Harris. The screenplay by David Hare is based on the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Michael Cunningham....
, the telling connections between past and present feel calculated rather than authentically illuminating."
In Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, Richard Schickel
Richard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....
said the film "represents perhaps the greatest diva round-up in modern movie history . . . Wow, you might think, how bad can that be? To which one responds, after two lugubrious hours in their company, really awful. Rarely have so many gifted women labored so tastefully to bring forth such a wee, lockjawed mouse . . . This may in part because it was Michael Cunningham, author of the book The Hours
The Hours
The Hours can refer to:* The Hours , by Francesco Bartolozzi, based on a painting by Maria Cosway* The Hours , by Michael Cunningham...
, another stupefying exercise in unspoken angst
Angst
Angst is an English, German, Danish, Norwegian and Dutch word for fear or anxiety . It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety or inner turmoil...
, who was hired to punch up the script Susan Minot was trying to make out of her novel. They share screenplay credit for Evening, but even in the press kit you can sense her loathing for his work. He's sort of Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
without the cojones
Cojones
Cojones is a vulgar Spanish word for testicles, denoting courage when used in the phrase "tener cojones" . It is considered a curse word when use by itself as an expletive in Spanish...
and definitely the most constipated sensibility the literary community has lately been in awe of. But I suspect that the director, Lajos Koltai, a Hungarian, has even more to do with the film's inertness."
Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly rated Evening as the 2nd worst movie of 2007.