Evening (2007)
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Reviews Counted: 127
Fresh: 34 | Rotten: 93
Beautifully filmed, but decidedly dull, Evening is a collossal waste of a talented cast.
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Critic Reviews: 38
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 27
Beautifully filmed, but decidedly dull, Evening is a collossal waste of a talented cast.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 123,366
My Rating
Movie Info
As Constance (Natasha Richardson) and Nina (Toni Collette) gather at the deathbed of their mother, Ann (Vanessa Redgrave), they learn for the first time that their mother lived an entire other lifetime during one evening 50 years ago, one she kept secret all their lives. In vivid flashbacks, the young Ann (played by Claire Daines) spends one night with a man named Harris (Patrick Wilson), whom she'd remember so many years later as the love of her life. As her daughters try to face the loss of
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Cast
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Claire Danes
Ann Grant -
Toni Collette
Nina Mars -
Vanessa Redgrave
Ann Lord -
Patrick Wilson
Harris Arden -
Hugh Dancy
Buddy Wittenborn -
Natasha Richardson
Constance Haverford -
Mamie Gummer
Lila Wittenborn -
Eileen Atkins
The Night Nurse -
Meryl Streep
Lila Ross -
Glenn Close
Mrs. Wittenborn -
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Barry Bostwick
Mr. Wittenborn
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Evening Trailer & Photos
All Critics (132) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (34) | Rotten (93) | DVD (2)
The film disintegrates into an indulgent succession of intense, fawning exchanges that overwhelm Minot's thin and monotonous tale.
Top CriticEven as I admired most of the performances -- and I do stress most of them -- I found myself searching in vain for one character to care about.
Evening's visual period splendour, its vivid characterizations and their comfortably clichéd relationships somehow draw us in and make us care.
Though the filmmaking is uneven, Evening redeems itself in its marvelous cast, which echoes the movies' themes by showcasing two real-life mother-daughter acting duos.
Evening achieves a kind of wisdom, though it's a strange and bitter wisdom. 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.
Great cast, mediocre writing.
Given its stellar cast -- including Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep and Glenn Close -- and source material, it's hard not to think it should be better.
Antiseptic bourgeois swank
What's the difference between slasher films and chick flicks? In slasher films they suffer less, and they die quicker. Evening, bless its banal heart, is a chick flick in all its fatuous glory.
Frankly I could watch Danes, Collette, Streep, Close, Richardson, etc., as they go food shopping, which just goes to show what a bunch of great actors can do for a fairly conventional tear-jerker.
Strong cast is best part of tragic romantic drama.
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.
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.
Some big names have been assembled for this old-fashioned "woman's picture" about thwarted expectations and lifelong regrets.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Evening is a slow burner, so slow in fact the credits roll before it ever gets going.
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Foreign Titles
- Spuren eines Lebens (DE)
Though the film is slow in places, I found it profound and profoundly moving. Ultimately, it supports domestic life, but it does so by denouncing regret -- a journey that resonates with me. Ann, fading away to her death, wonders how life would have turned out if she had pursued a man with whom she had a one night stand years ago just as her daughter wonders whether to stay with the man who impregnated her; it is perhaps too convenient that these storylines so flawlessly intertwine, but as the stories unfold, I forgot about the convenience and concentrated on the theme.
There isn't an outstanding performance in the film, save possibly for Toni Collette as the uncertain daughter, but everyone is solid.
I did think that the romance between Ann and Harris should have been more passionate or more deeply connected; as it is, I wonder if a one night stand is really worth a lifetime of regret.
Overall, I enjoyed Evening, a poignant drama with timeless themes.