User Reviews

Starting 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.

Firstly, 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.

STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING is a nearly enjoyable, nearly transcendent, nearly watchable version of the tired premise that a young vibrant psychotic can breathe life into an old, stodgy corpse. No news is no news, as they ought to say in production meetings.

According to American cinema, all Great Writers sag into lonely, regretful decrepitude, in need of either a starstruck graduate student or a high school underachiever to make them start acting half their age. This clunker comes complete with a cast of digital video all-stars - Jesus Christ, is that Lili Taylor? again? - and new age piano music: Adam Gorgoni channeling Thomas Newman, with string arrangements when it's time to cry and acoustic guitar to cue momentary inspiration. The whole production feels like something left under the seats at a second-tier film festival circa 1998.

Frank Langella is, once more, a great actor in a bad film. He does no more than the role requires, which is a mercy, given the already bloated running time; but the camera lingers on him anyway as if anticipating some curtain-chewing that never begins. For his sake, I was screaming for this movie to end years before it finally did. (It would be more accurate to say that what this movie finally does is peter out.) Lili Taylor displays her single cinematic ability, which is to play dull ambivalence with earnest conviction. Lauren Ambrose is nice to look at; she's always got a little something going on behind her disarmingly wide eyes. Too bad there's more in her eyes than in this picture. Saccharine as it was, WONDER BOYS at least had Robert Downey Jr playing a drugged up wastrel.

The movie ends on what I'm sure Andrew Wagner thought was a poignant reprise of its opening shot; in fact it's just another reminder that the story goes noooowheeeere. There's a moment when a supposedly unsympathetic character sums up the film's protagonist as a white guy in a suit who goes to bed early. This is designed to reveal the speaker's superficiality, but what it actually does is accurately convey the filmmaker's unwitting tendency to hit his points on the nose. When the guy who doesn't want to have children gives the old man a bath, you know, as if he's bathing a child, we, uh, we get it, man. Really. You didn't have to show us his penis.

In fact, you didn't even have to make the movie. We saw FINDING FORRESTER. Actually, we didn't. We didn't have to.

Movies 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.

In a time of year when most films entering the public arena are either devoid of intelligence or dumped for release in attempts to recoup just a little of their budget, it is nice to know we in Buffalo still get the off the beaten track indies to satiate those looking for an evening of pondering and contemplation. Starting Out in the Evening is one of those movies, despite the fact that it comes to DVD in a little over a month, making it one of those dumped films in the end. Either way, besides some general flaws and a few scenes that did not work for me, I can safely say that I thoroughly enjoyed it as a whole. The acting helps vault the script up by portraying many moments of silence. We see what they think, we see their reactions to the awkwardness of relationships, and we see their flaws without the need of bombast and explanation. This is a very literary work, as it should be coming from a novel, and I believe that essence stays intact. Leonard Schiller may be the center of the tale as his work becomes the subject of a young woman's thesis, but it is his style that stays unwavering on screen. Novelist Brian Morton's characters become the embodiment of Schiller's, evolving and becoming what they should be through the addition of freedom in their lives. However, it is this freedom that glaring becomes its fault. The ability to change and not do the easy thing is noble, the fact that we hear about the fiction characters doing this and then see the film's cast also, you start to wonder if the deep meaning you saw at the start was really just a trite exercise in duplicity and sentimentality winning out over meaningful prose devoid of personal experience. I guess it all depends on the reader, some love "Tenderness" and other "The Lost City." To each their own.

There are some amazing moments in this film that end up getting somewhat overshadowed by the neatly tied up conclusion. I almost wish this film could have been just Frank Langella's subtle and poignant portrayal of Schiller opposite Lauren Ambrose's radiant yet naïve grad student Heather Wolfe. This is where the interesting stuff occurs. Don't get me wrong, the parallel tale of Schiller's daughter, played superbly by Lili Taylor, and her wrestling with personal demons in the guise of ex-love Casey, Adrian Lester, grows into something more than the aside it starts out as. In actuality, this thread leads to one of my favorite scenes of Taylor finally standing up for herself, finally becoming like those women in her father's first two novels—strong, assured, and unafraid to make the tough decisions in order to fulfill their own happiness. Telling her counterpart to leave at her most vulnerable because she knows she'll never be that strong again was a truly powerful exchange. It is just that on the whole, she and Lester become pawns in the film serving only to run their course like the characters of Schiller's work. They are props to prove a point and maybe that sentimentality just didn't sit well with me tonight, but it just seemed too orchestrated.

Back to our leads, though, Langella and Ambrose stay true to throughout. Do they evolve? Sure, but they also show the most flaws and imperfections. Both see what they want in each other—her a man with something to say, something to contribute to the world unlike those of her young age, and he a woman, young and beautiful, unafraid to act on her instincts, something he may have stopped doing many years ago when his wife died. The facades soon fade and show through to the truth beneath, laying bare their souls. Both get something from the exchange, but at what cost? Every young writer needs to come to that point where she discovers whether she will sacrifice relationships for the work or the work for those around her, (a subject I adore as one would know from my love of the film Capote). It just so happens that while she picks the road she knows she has to, it is the view of her decision that brings back the memories to Schiller of the years where he did the same. Maybe he let his guard down, maybe he needed to be awoken to the cruel world around him in order to free his characters from the safe and neutral path they had been traveling for over a decade, either way, while his body may fail, his mind becomes invigorated to do right again, by both his work and his family. It is a strong core that carries the film well, but while it only alludes to the stories within the story, those side plots blatantly call the comparisons up, making the strength become more of a crutch and contrivance.

The moments that work do work to wonderful effect. Ambrose telling her idol why his novel touched her so deeply while waiting for the elevator is fantastic, and the quote used to title this review; the final encounter between the two at his kitchen table is so true and releasing for both; and even a small scene in a movie theatre line, opening Taylor's eyes to her boyfriend's true core being, stick with you long after they pass. Thankfully they stand out more than those moments that unfortunately bring more smirks and head scratching than feelings of awe, (think honey absurdity), because while the film is somewhat of a mixed bag, what you really remember are those scenes that I'm sure the filmmakers hoped you would. With a little reservation, I will recommend this film for those moments and the discussion that it can elicit afterwards; weighty subjects that can be expounded on using what you've seen as a springboard for more.

Yes, when it comes right down to it, this is a film about stalking. In this case a young, female college student stalking an old, dying author. In other words, the girl is creepy.

The reason I watch this film to begin with is that I have always thought that Frank Langella was an excellent actor that rarely gets his due. I don't remember a time that I didn't enjoy one of his performances. And, I liked his understated performance here.

But I can't say I really liked the film. For one thing, as mentioned, the girl's character is just too creepy, particularly because she is stalking a senior citizen. Ewwwwww.

There's also a sub-plot here. Langella's character's daughter is unsettled and in love with 2 men -- one a more acceptable White man, the other a Black man. Since I wasn't particularly enthralled with the main plot, the Black actor here is one who I really admire, and he kept me watching the film -- Adrian Lester, a wonderful British actor. If anything, I wish his part would have been larger.

Maybe I'm an old humbug, but even though I have nothing against May-December romances, this one turned me off and -- to use the old cliché -- it made me feel dirty just watching it.

Of course, we think we have sort of an idea where the story is heading. But I'll let you find that out for yourself.

In the end, though I didn't expect it, I ended up liking the subplot more than the main plot, although the two come together in a surprising way late in the film.

Do I recommend this film? In general, no. If you like Langella, as I do, then yes. If you like Lester, as I do, then yes. I'll have to give this a "6", and that is a "below average" rating for me. Mr. Langella and Mr. Lester, I respect you both, but even your talents were not enough to pull this through for me.

So 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.

This is a truly tedious film featuring 5 of the most loathsome characters to appear in an indie film in many years. A much celebrated "slap" occurs in the film. My question: would somebody just slap the screenwriter? Nobody talks the way these characters talk. Few 25 year olds (aside from the late Anna Nicole Smith) would even attempt the seduction of a nearly 70 year old man. But if they did, they certainly wouldn't do it this way--wiping honey on the man's face; speaking like a freshman English student at a grade C college (not the graduate student she is). The subplot with his vacuous daughter and her two idiot boyfriends is almost completely disconnected from the principal story. My only hope at the end is that if the author's final book ever does make it into print, the director and writer of this film will not buy the rights to make it into a film.

Many 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.