Evening (2007)

Director:

Lajos Koltai

Writers (WGA):

Susan Minot (screenplay) and
Michael Cunningham (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

29 June 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Her greatest secret was her greatest gift.

Plot:

A drama exploring the romantic past and emotional present of Ann Grant and her daughters, Constance and Nina. As Ann lays dying, she remembers, and is moved to convey to her daughters, the defining moments in her life 50 years prior, when she was a young woman. Harris is the man Ann loves in the 1950s and never forgets.

Plot Keywords:

Namesake | Gay | Sister Sister Relationship | Brother Sister Relationship | Lost Love

Cast

Claire Danes	...	Ann Grant
Toni Collette	...	Nina Mars
Vanessa Redgrave	...	Ann Lord
Patrick Wilson	...	Harris Arden
Hugh Dancy	...	Buddy Wittenborn
Natasha Richardson	...	Constance Haverford
Mamie Gummer	...	Lila Wittenborn
Eileen Atkins	...	The Night Nurse
Meryl Streep	...	Lila Ross
Glenn Close	...	Mrs. Wittenborn
Ebon Moss-Bachrach	...	Luc
Barry Bostwick	...	Mr. Wittenborn
David Furr	...	Ralph Haverford
Sarah Viccellio	...	Lizzie Tull
Cheryl Lynn Bowers	...	Peach Howze

Also Known As:

Spuren eines Lebens (Germany)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements, sexual material, a brief accident scene and language.

Runtime:

USA:117 min | Argentina:117 min | USA:117 min

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Ireland:12A | Australia:M | Finland:K-7 | Hong Kong:IIA | Germany:6 | Singapore:NC-16 (DVD rating) | Singapore:PG | Argentina:13 | Netherlands:6 | Philippines:PG-13 | South Korea:15 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

85th St. and West End Avenue, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Hart-Sharp Entertainment

Trivia:

According to The Hollywood Reporter (9/14/06): "director Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation (2003)) had been in preliminary discussions to direct, and Oscar-winning actress Ellen Burstyn was discussed for the lead role, but those deals never developed."

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In a scene showing Harris with a stethoscope around his neck, that type of stethoscope was not used until the 1980's.

Quotes:

[from trailer]
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...

Soundtrack:

Evening Cocktails

Don't expect the book

Since starting to read the book this movie is based on, I'm having mixed feelings about the filmed result. I learned some time ago to see the movie adaptation of a book before I read the book, because I found that if I read the book first I was inevitably disappointed in the film. This would undoubtedly have been true here, whereas in the case of Atonement, which is probably the best filmed adaptation of a book I've ever seen, it would probably not have mattered.

I'm trying to figure out what the cause is, and I suspect that I have to point my finger squarely at Michael Cunningham. Much as I respect him for The Hours (which I have not read but which I saw and was awed by) I cannot escape the feeling that he not so much adapted Susan Minton's book as he did take a few of the characters and the basic premise and write his own movie out of it.

It's not that I dislike the movie. I actually love the movie, which is why, since I started reading the novel, I'm feeling disturbed about the whole thing. I feel disloyal to Ms. Minton for enjoying the movie which was so thooughly a departure from her work. Reading it, I can understand why she had such a struggle adapting it. Unlike what one reviewer of the movie said, it's not so much that some novels don't deserve to be a movie; it's more like some books just can't make the transition. Ms. Minton's novel operates on a level so personal and intimate to her central character, so internally, that it seems impossible to me to place it in a physical realm. Even though a lot of the book is memory of real events, it is memory, and so fragmented and ethereal as to be, I feel, not filmable. I think that Ms. Minton's work is a real work of literature, but cannot make the transition to film, which in no way detracts from its value.

I cannot yet report that Evening, the film, does not represent Evening, the novel, in any more than the most superficial way, since I'm only halfway through, but the original would have to make a tremendous leap to resemble the film that follows at this point. I guess I'm writing this because I feel that if you're going to adapt a novel, adapt it, but don't make it something else that it's not. I'm not sure if Michael Cunningham has done anything wholly original, but from what I can see so far the things he has done are all based on someone else's work. We would not have The Hours if Virginia Woolf had not written Mrs. Dalloway, and we would not have Evening, in its distressed form, if Susan Minton had not had so much trouble doing what probably should not have been attempted in the first place. But it's too much to say that it would be better if Ms. Minton had left well enough alone, because Evening, the film, is a satisfactory and beautiful work of its own.

Thus my confusion, mixed feelings, sense of disloyalty, and ultimate conclusion that, in this case, the novel cannot be the film and vice versa, and my eventual gratitude to both writers for doing what they did, so that we have both works as they are.