EVENING

US, 2007, 117 minutes, Colour.
Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Natasha Richardson, Mamie Gummer, Eileen Atkins, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Barry Bostwick.
Directed by Lajos Koltai.

We are familiar with the film which opens on a deathbed followed by a long flashback. While flashbacks occur in Evening, the film is really two stories in one: a story, in the present, of a death and the people who come to the dying woman’s bedside and the story of the woman in the past, in the 1950s.

Evening belongs to a genre of popular film-making that might look something like elegant soap-opera at first, but one which avoids most of the melodrama and heightened emotional interactions that is characteristic of the soaps. Films like The Notebook or even The Hours move backwards and forwards in time but emphasise the humanity of the characters more than the soaps do.

The Notebook and The Hours also remind us of how a large cast of top actors can enhance what might seem an ordinary or familiar story.

Evening has been adapted for the screen by its author Susan Minton with the collaboration of Michael Cunningham (who wrote The Hours). It has been directed by Hungarian cinematographer, Lajos Koltai, who directed a powerful film about the Holocaust in 2005, his first directorial effort, Fateless. Koltai has a keen eye for visually impressive filming as well as an ability to communicate feelings.

Vanessa Redgrave is Ann Grant, who is bedridden and dying. Her two daughters, played by Toni Collette and Natasha Richardson (Vanessa Redgrave’s own daughter) have come to be with her. One is a happy family woman, the other (Colette) is low on self-esteem, prickly, and uncertain about the direction of her life. Eileen Atkins plays the sympathetic night nurse. Vanessa Redgrave is confined to her room and, in fact, her bed except for one sequence but she is convincing as a dying woman.

Clare Danes portrays Ann Grant in the 1950s, an effective portrait of the younger woman, made all the more interesting as the film moves between the two actresses and we try to connect them and the development of Ann Grant’s personality and character. The setting of the 1950s story is the wedding of her best friend from college, Lila, who belongs to a wealthy family whose mother (Glenn Close) has some pretensions to local grandeur. She has an alcoholic younger brother, Buddy (Hugh Dancy), and a childhood sweetheart Harris, (Patrick Wilson). Attention is given to the wedding preparations, to Buddy’s infatuation with and dependence on Ann as well as to the charming Harris and the effect he has on his friends and on Ann. At the end of the day, there is some melodrama which affects Ann’s life.

There is a moving scene at the end of the film when the older Lila comes to visit the dying Ann. Lila has been played by Mamie Gummer and the older Lila is played by her real mother, Meryl Streep. Mamie Gummer looks like her mother and exhibits some of her mother’s expressions. This is one of the arresting ‘extras’ with Evening, to see Vanessa Redgrave and Meryl Streep and their daughters.

The film is pleasingly modulated in its pace, maybe too measured for some tastes, which means that it does not have the dynamic urgency of high drama. But, it gives an opportunity for audiences to appreciate a whole life, how a person changes, makes mistakes, has regrets, has great joys and comes to face death.

1.The target audience for this film? Old-fashioned in style? Emotional and sentimental? Its impact, portrait of characters, dramatic situations, melodrama, the touches of soap opera?

2.The present: Ann and her dying, the evening of her life, her daughters coming to her, her friends, the nurse, wanting understanding and peace? Moving in and out of consciousness? The insertion of the memories?

3.The past: the popular girl, post-college, going to the affluent family, the parties, the wedding, the relationships, clashes, death?

4.The visual style, the re-creation of period? The intercutting of the present? Its effect?

5.Vanessa Redgrave as Ann, dying, her memories, her two daughters, the contrast between Nina and Constance? Their visit, care, the story about Harris, the girls’ puzzlement? Their clashes? Ann in and out of consciousness? The nurse, seeing her in the dress, imagining her as some kind of guide? The importance of Lila’s visit? Their discussion, seeing Harris in perspective? The effect? Ann’s concern about the boat, the relationship with Harris, with Buddy’s death? Blaming herself for Buddy’s death? Yet the reality of her life, the years, her singing, marriage, divorce, her daughters?

6.Nina and Constance, the differences between the two, their relationship with their mother, their personal clashes? Themes of family, marriage? Each of them with her mother? Constance, the family, all being well? Nina, on edge, not holding down a job, her relationship with Luc, the revelation of the pregnancy, not telling Luc, telling her mother, her sister? Finally coming to terms with it, her hopes?

7.The past: the situation of the wedding, the circumstances? Ann, her student background, strong-minded, friendship with Buddy, with Lila? The college days? Ann as a singer – and her singing at the wedding? Her friendship with Lila, wanting to know whether or not she loved her husband? Whether she loved Harris? Buddy, his relationship with Ann? Ann and hearing about Harris, on the boat? The attraction? Harris and the sexual encounter, the fact that they did not hear Buddy and the accident? Blaming herself for Buddy’s death?

8.Ann as strong, a friend to Lila, the discussions with her, at the ceremony, the reception, the meals? All the preparation for the wedding, the night before? Harris and the attraction? Buddy and his drinking, his declarations of love?

9.Lila, strong, the wedding, regrets or not? The night before, the discussions with Ann? The ceremony?

10.Buddy, lonely, spoilt, drinking, friendship with Ann, love for Lila, infatuated with Harris? His drinking? The ceremony? The dive, his deceiving the group? The irony of his death on the road?

11.The effect of his death on everyone?

12.The portrait of the Wittenborns? Glenn Close as the epitome of the haughty mother? Barry Bostwick as the genial father? Their interactions with their guests, with their children? Everything just so?

13.Harris, his character, charm? Ann and the encounter, her regrets after the sexual encounter and Buddy’s death? What might have been? The chance encounter in later years and the discussion what had happened to each of them?

14.The intercutting between past and present? Understanding the past? Looking forward to a future? The reflection on the evening of a life?