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Starting Out In The Evening DVD Review
Starting Out In The Evening DVD Credits:
Starting Out In The Evening Directed by:
Andrew Wagner
Starting Out In The Evening Written by:
Andrew Wagner, Fred Parness
Starting Out In The Evening Cast:
Frank Langella, Lauren Ambrose, Lili Taylor, Adrian Lester
Starting Out In The Evening Released by:
Not available at this time
Region:
1
Starting Out In The Evening DVD Release Date:
5th May 2008
Our Rating: Extras Rating:

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Starting Out In The Evening Synopsis:

Langella plays Leonard Schiller, a once-famous New York writer who is both shaken and emboldened when a beautiful graduate student(Lauren Ambrose) invades his solitude to mine his life for her thesis about his novels.

Starting Out In The Evening DVD Review:

Starting Out in the Evening is a neatly packed little film that explores both family and romantic relationships, as well as the nature of age. Like the color palette, the film is rather subdued and methodical. The actors mesh really well on screen and flesh out the world of literary intellectuals. Though the acting and production design are mostly spot-on for this quaint study of the aging artist, the film suffers from a slight pacing issue towards the middle and end of Act II. This film is definitely not one for fans of action.

Leonard Schiller is a novelist, working on a novel after taking a break for many years. His work is suddenly interrupted by an admiring graduate student, Heather Wolfe, who wants to find the inspiration behind the books. Schiller is reluctant at first, unwilling to face the realities of his situation. However, he finds that Wolfe has some literary merit as a critic and agrees to let her into his world. The two soon establish an awkward semi-romantic relationship brought about by a love of literature.

Meanwhile, Leonard’s daughter Ariel is facing relationship conflicts of her own. She desperately wants to be a mother, but has no desire to marry the potential father. She is utterly lost romantically, and confides in her father. When she finds out about the new woman in his life, she is outraged. She is convinced that she is after something more, and who would blame her? Heather is a struggling literary critic trying to gain recognition in a circle unappreciative of older works. However, Heather is successfully able to break Leonard’s shell, and forces him to confront what limits him in his advanced age.

This film benefits from some great performances. Frank Langella successfully transitions from a wary, cautious recluse to an open, vulnerable writer. His calm, bass voice nicely compliments the methodology of the character, a character who constantly lives in his head. Lili Taylor also does a good job of playing a protective daughter who sometimes forgets to deal with her own romantic problems first. Lauren Ambrose’s character Heather Wolfe, on the other hand, is not as likeable. She is annoyingly clingy and is not as believable as a romantic interest for Schiller. This creates somewhat of a problem, especially after the film’s midpoint when the relationship gets more and more intimate.

The story, while slow and pointed, is crafted well. The film is successfully able to jump from relationship to relationship while keeping Schiller’s underlying goal of writing something true ever present. The characters are three-dimensional and fully explore their environment.

The production design and cinematography accents the story well. The brown and yellow undertones highlight the themes of aging and opening up from being a recluse. The crafted shadows show Schiller’s duality when deciding how much to expose his true feelings to Heather. The film is very pretty, even if it can be slow at times.

The one extra that this DVD features is director’s commentary. Director Andrew Wagner has some interesting things to say about the movie and provides some insight into the true motivations of the writing of this picture.








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Starting Out In The Evening DVD review written by: Kirsten Moore

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