A stellar cast, consisting of Vanessa Redgrave, Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Natasha Richardson, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep, is reason enough for watching "Evening," one of those high-toned, slightly stuffy, intergenerational family dramas that is all about lost loves, wasted lives and missed opportunities, this time among the champagne-sipping upper crust of Newport, Rhode island.
Redgrave stars as Ann Grant, a terminally ill woman whose dementia is leading her to reveal secrets on her deathbed that have been locked away in her memory for years. Collette and Richardson play her two adult daughters who are able to glean only a few tantalizing nuggets about their mother's past as they emerge randomly and still partially obscured from the fog of her delirium. These scenes set in the present are intercut with those from the past, the 1950's in fact, when a young Ann (now played by Danes) fell in love with Harris (Patrick Wilson), the servant of her best friend, Lila (Mamie Gummer, who looks for all the world like a young Meryl Streep, who indeed steps in as Lila for the present scenes). Lila also happens to be in love with Harris, but she is instead marrying Karl (Timothy Kiefler), mainly because his aristocratic pedigree mixes better with her family's blue blood (echoes of the much-better "Atonement" abound throughout). Further complicating matters is Lila's kid brother, Buddy (Hugh Dancy), who appears to be in love with both Ann and Harris at one and the same time.
Needless to say, much of this plays like a tony, high-class soap opera, but at least two of the characters manage to rise above the suds and fully engage our interest: Colette's Nina, whose paralyzing fear of commitment and of making life-altering mistakes threatens to leave her a bitter, lonely woman; and Dancy's Buddy, whose conflicted sexuality brings an unforeseen complexity and depth to the character. Most of the rest of the characters are considerably less interesting, including Ann (both the one in the present and the one in the past) whose personal revelations are supposed to be the glue holding this overpopulated story together. Harris is a particularly bland and uncharismatic figure for a man who is supposed to be such an irresistible magnetic attraction for at least three of the principal characters in the story.
The burden of transferring Susan Manot's novel to the screen has fallen on the shoulders of director Lajos Koltai, whose metier seems to consist primarily of pretty landscapes, dusky lighting and tinkling pianos. And yet, amid all the soap opera trappings, the movie has some important things to say about not just letting go of the past but of having the courage to move into the future.
"Evening" is decidedly a mixed bag as far as movie-making and drama go, but the powerhouse performances (particularly by Collette, Richardson, Redgrave and Dancy) make for worthwhile viewing.
Redgrave stars as Ann Grant, a terminally ill woman whose dementia is leading her to reveal secrets on her deathbed that have been locked away in her memory for years. Collette and Richardson play her two adult daughters who are able to glean only a few tantalizing nuggets about their mother's past as they emerge randomly and still partially obscured from the fog of her delirium. These scenes set in the present are intercut with those from the past, the 1950's in fact, when a young Ann (now played by Danes) fell in love with Harris (Patrick Wilson), the servant of her best friend, Lila (Mamie Gummer, who looks for all the world like a young Meryl Streep, who indeed steps in as Lila for the present scenes). Lila also happens to be in love with Harris, but she is instead marrying Karl (Timothy Kiefler), mainly because his aristocratic pedigree mixes better with her family's blue blood (echoes of the much-better "Atonement" abound throughout). Further complicating matters is Lila's kid brother, Buddy (Hugh Dancy), who appears to be in love with both Ann and Harris at one and the same time.
Needless to say, much of this plays like a tony, high-class soap opera, but at least two of the characters manage to rise above the suds and fully engage our interest: Colette's Nina, whose paralyzing fear of commitment and of making life-altering mistakes threatens to leave her a bitter, lonely woman; and Dancy's Buddy, whose conflicted sexuality brings an unforeseen complexity and depth to the character. Most of the rest of the characters are considerably less interesting, including Ann (both the one in the present and the one in the past) whose personal revelations are supposed to be the glue holding this overpopulated story together. Harris is a particularly bland and uncharismatic figure for a man who is supposed to be such an irresistible magnetic attraction for at least three of the principal characters in the story.
The burden of transferring Susan Manot's novel to the screen has fallen on the shoulders of director Lajos Koltai, whose metier seems to consist primarily of pretty landscapes, dusky lighting and tinkling pianos. And yet, amid all the soap opera trappings, the movie has some important things to say about not just letting go of the past but of having the courage to move into the future.
"Evening" is decidedly a mixed bag as far as movie-making and drama go, but the powerhouse performances (particularly by Collette, Richardson, Redgrave and Dancy) make for worthwhile viewing.