Roger Ebert called Evening a “weeper that doesn’t make you weep”. Truer words were never spoken Roger, or maybe they have, I don’t know. What I do know is that from the way the plot was cut in the trailer and its prodigious use of “White Flag” by Dido in the trailer, I was expecting a terribly conventional love story and boy was I not disappointed. Well, I was disappointed because the movie was disappointing, but on the other hand I was expecting it to be such, so I kind of wasn’t. And yes, this argument was raging in my head as I watched the movie because the story was so utterly obvious.



Evening is one of those movies that yo-yos through the timestream. On the one end we see Ann (played by Vanessa Redgrave) as an old lady on her death bed being taken care of by her daughters Connie (Natasha Richardson) and Nina (Toni Collette). Ann is flashing back to her past when, as a young woman (now Claire Danes), she arrived at a seaside house to be bridesmaid for her friend Lila Wittenborn (Mamie Gummer), who may be marrying the wrong guy for the wrong reasons. This night was also relevant because of the fate of Lila’s brother and Ann hanger-on Buddy (Hugh Dancy) and the lingering memory of lost love with the doctor son (Patrick Wilson) of the Wittenborn’s servant.



I don’t know how it is in the novel that the film is based on, but there a lot of things in Evening that go unsaid. Like why does the older Ann keep receiving visions of her night nurse as some kind of luminescent angel in a 50s ball gown? Secondly, Harris, despite being a handsome doctor that comes from a background of limited means, is not that interesting a guy. He’s bland in a very soap operatic way with all the chiselled features of a block of wood and just as thick. Meanwhile, the real tragedy of the affair, the one that should be keeping Ann awake on her death bed is sort of glossed over as she pines for the lost love of the Doctor, when she should be thinking about what it cost her.



You have to admire the clever casting choices; Richardson is Redgrave’s real-life daughter and the older Lila is played by Gummer’s mother Meryl Streep. All the cute, little casting choices though can’t make up for the fact this plays out like a cheap, pulp romance novel. Was I supposed to swoon because I don’t do that? Granted, I think the performances and the performers are all right, but the story plays out rather obviously, and there’s nothing more then I hate than obviousness I guess that works for some people, the old ladies in the crowd certainly seemed entertained, but I was merely weary.



To streamline this process down let me make this analogy. If you eagerly wait weekly for the latest romance paperbacks to his the stands, then Evening is your picture. If, however though, you are more likely to mock those people as you shop for Guitar Hero magazine or something, then you’d be wise to walk to the other side of the street.