Frank Langella (Dracula, Good Night, and Good Luck.) stars in Andrew Wagner's independent drama Starting Out in the Evening, an adaptation of the acclaimed 1999 best-seller by Brian Morton. Langella plays Leonard Schiller, a once-celebrated author whose first four novels inspired Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose) to pursue a career as a writer. These days, Leonard is still working toward completion of the novel that has occupied his life for nearly a decade. On the surface, Leonard has removed
himself completely from the deep-seated need for success that characterized his life at an earlier point in time; but on a more buried level, he still longs for his fiction to be rediscovered and re-acclaimed. Now an eager graduate student in the throes of her thesis, Heather is writing her dissertation on Schiller, and promptly convinces him that she can use the thesis to regenerate popularity and discovery of his work. Heather also projects personal interest in Leonard, however, which cuts straight through to the core of his loneliness and brings him in touch with his need for a meaningful relationship even as it leaves him feeling shaken and increasingly uncertain. Meanwhile, Leonard finds that his relationship with his daughter, Ariel (Lili Taylor), is challenged, both by Heather's presence and by Ariel's decision to begin dating her former boyfriend Casey (Adrian Lester) once again -- a fact that Leonard finds most upsetting thanks to his disapproval of Casey. Suddenly, Leonard feels his entire world turned upside down, from his familial relationships to the security of his writing to his own physical vitality -- but he is also taking risks and plunging headfirst into the core of life for the first time, thus living out the principles long celebrated and upheld in his fiction and giving himself the capacity to grow. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
Starting Out in the Evening is thrilling in a way that a movie larded with car chases and explosions can seldom be, because of the way it deals with that basic building block of civilization, the creative process.
What to do with this light, while it lasts? [Director] Wagner's problem is to find an answer to that question and also to offer some resolution to the conflicts of honesty and compromise the movie portrays.
ut when all is finally revealed it’s gesture—especially the hands—that lifts this film into the ranks of extraordinary and ... bears repeated viewings to savour the subtlety and intimate sense of self.
Awkward and sometimes overly subtle, but compelling performances by a cast of normally supporting actors who make the most of their much deserved chance to carry a film.
Criminally overlooked, this is a great movie, about which I could find no complaint or overt flaw except feeling that Taylor (whom I do love) was mostly a distraction. See it if you can.
Wagner's film is an elegy of sorts for that once-mighty beast known as the New York Writer, a creature that now finds itself increasingly marginalized in a world in which readers are getting scarcer and shelf space for serious fiction is dwindling daily.
Wonderful performance from Frank Langella is the main attraction of this film. Slow and at times a little dull but worthwhile to watch a master at work.
April 4, 2009
jay nixon
Super Reviewer
This movie has everything that I love in a movie: an air-tight, engaging and excellently-written script; cream-of-the crop actors (talent-wise, not tabloid-wise) who really grip you with their intensity and utter devotion to the characters they are playing; and a director who really knows what the film they're making
is all about and what it should mean to the people who are watching it.
Lauren Amborse (one of my favorites--of Six Feet Under fame) is a true revelation as an ambitious grad-student who is completely enamored with the world of literature and its escapist qualities. She is so in love with words that she is also in love with the man responsible for writing some of her favorite "works of art."
This man would be Anthony Langella's character (and out-of-touch; hiding in the darkness, forgotten writer who is working on his latest (and presumably his last) great novel. Still, something is keeping him from completing his work of art (10 years in the making) and he's not sure why he's unable to just hammer it out and finish it. This is when Ambrose's character comes in and "shakes things up" for an old writer who has little chance at ever being published again and therefore, being forgotten for all time with no legacy to leave behind.
Lili Taylor is outstanding as the writer's daughter. Her subplot storyline of feeling neglected by the men in her life (her father included) is heart-breaking and tender as well. It really shows you that this film is really a character showcase and it allows its actors to really sink their teeth and completely embody the characters they portray.
There is so much hurt and joy and learning that words can cause and there is a way of using words to shield ourselves from the things we want protection from. But ultimately, the truth about the way we work and why we do the things we do comes to light and slaps some sense into us.
We need words to slap us into believing in ourselves again. We need words to know how we truly feel about one another. We need words to live. We needs words to survive in a world where words are not spoken in order to spare someone's feelings or to strip someone from feeling anything altogether. Words give us our dignity--and when, for example, a writer runs out of words, sometims what's needed is somone to give that person the will (no matter how late in life; no matter how late in the evening of your existence) to speak words once more.
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