Evening
Friday, 21 Sep 2007 12:05
Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy in Evening
Icon, directed by Lajos Koltai, 21st September, starring Claire Danes, Vanessa Redgrave, Mammie Grummer, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Toni Collette, Natasha Richardson, Eileen Atkins, Meryl Streep and Glenn Close, 1hr 57 mins.
In a nutshell...
Disappointing, trite, lacking in emotion
What's it about?
Ann Lord is dying, her two daughters Nina and Constance at her bedside. As illness begins to take hold Ann cries out for Harris, much to the shock of her daughters. Who is Harris and why had they never heard of him? As she slips in and out of consciousness Ann journey's in her mind back to the summer 50 years before when she was Ann Grant, traveling to the high-society Newport wedding of her college friend Lila.
Friendships and romances blossom as tension gargles beneath the surface of the postcard-perfect beach home where everything leads up to the climax that is Lila's wedding. This evening will change everyone's life forever.
Who's in it?
Claire Danes as the young Ann is the protagonist of the story with Vanessa Redgrave playing the older, dying Ann. Danes is at best competent yet Redgrave gives such a passionate and dignified performance that it is a shame she alone can't save this movie. In a fleeting scene Meryl Streep is utterly fantastic if not grossly underused, showing everyone how it is done. Her subtle technique is echoed by real-life daughter Mammie Grummer, who plays the young Lila to Streep's older Lila respectively. Glenn Close is Lila's mother and gets a disappointingly small and clipped role as Lila's mother and Patrick Wilson's Harris lacks the charm and personality of someone who so many people are in love with. Hugh Dancy is perfect as the film's catalyst for tragedy, Buddy, and makes Harris look like a cardboard cut-out. Toni Collette and Natasha Richardson are never really given the chance to shine and are forced to fill in the background and do their best with what they're given.
As an example…
Lila Wittenborn: Your mother had her whole life. She sang at my wedding... she raised two girls... we can't know everything she did. We are mysterious creatures, aren't we?
Buddy Wittenborn: What if we just sang and laughed together... for the rest of our lives?
Young Ann: It wouldn't work.
Buddy Wittenborn: Not for you...
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars?
Redgrave is great but Dancy is better. He manages to make the audience fall in love with Buddy and share his pain, which is remarkable given the lack of emotion in this film. An Oscar would only solidify this fact.
What the others say
"My favorite actor was Hugh Dancy because of his emotion. For a man that came from Ella Enchanted to this movie, I am impressed. He makes you fall in love with his wit and he makes you cry along with him in his misery. You feel for him all the way through" – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"Evening, which bears little more than a passing resemblance to Susan Minot's 1998 book of the same name, suffers from the same problem as a certain ex-boyfriend of mine: All emotion registers as melodrama, though in this case the flushed and flustered parts do not cohere into a melodramatic (ie generic) whole" – Michelle Orange, the Reeler.
So is it any good?
For a film tipped as "deeply emotional", Evening grossly lacks in depth. The stories conflict between love and societal conflict are well executed, yet at the expense of failing to see the film that "illuminates the timeless love which binds mother and daughter" it strives to be.
The cinematography is bland and lifeless masquerading as pretty and nice and the dialogue is as 2D as the paper it was written on. Since there is little for the actors to work with the flow of the narrative is greatly hindered and the acting never gets a chance to shine through convincingly.
The main love story is trite and disappointment hangs heavily in the air right from the start when the lack of chemistry between Danes and Wilson becomes apparent. Are we to believe that Ann is still pining for Harris after all these years or is it her innocence and optimism that she lost that evening that she is really mourning? The "love" between Ann and Harris just doesn't seem great enough to transcend they weekend they spend together, let alone a lifetime.
We are then left with the supposed mother-daughter love, yet apart from a scene where Ann reluctantly sings to her young daughters this love is also missing. By the time we see Ann with them again she is dying, leaving her bickering daughters alone to put the pieces of the puzzle together themselves.
As an audience, we are only ever privy to the tip of the iceberg and we never fully get past the glossy surface that hides what is lurking beneath. There is such a buildup to the evening of Lila's wedding that when it is over, the result of the events get crammed in at the end of the tale, acting as a side salad rather than the dessert we've been waiting for to leave us fully satisfied. Sadly this is Evening's greatest problem and in the end we are left with little answers to our questions. Though the point of us following Ann's daughters is to show us that we can't always have the answers, without the character investment and emotional pull the audience is left uncaring, unsatisfied and frustrated. As happens with films adapted from novels, characters and parts of the narrative are left out in order to make the story fit into the film medium. Unfortunately for us, the makers of Evening left out the heart of this story and they just don't give it the justice it deserves. Go and read the book instead.
4/10
Louise Cadell
"This movie, even though it only shows you subtly, moves you very deeply. It almost seems simple but then it's really very complicated. It speaks of truth, of hope and at the same time the hardships and choices in life. I thought that all the actors and actresses were amazing. I was right there with them. My favourite was Hugh Dancy who I thought was absolutely stunning. Playing Buddy, he cauught my heart and I was either smiling with joy when he was exuberant and laughing with that beautiful smile of his or I felt his breaking heart as mine, his pain was my pain. You fall in love with him instantly and would do anything to protect him. To feel for a charcater that much, to have someone that moves you so deeply is, in itself, a miracle. Hugh Dancy who created him, I thank him with all my heart and hope that he knows that he is as precious as all the stars in in heavens. For all the other actors and actresses - thank you so much as well. You have all created something so precious. Yes, maybe it did "lack" in a little bit of emotion, but isn't that how the human race is?" - Emma Fuller
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