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evening out
07/08/2007 = 07:32 AM

I went to see Evening last, well, evening. (No spoilers.)

It was elegant, beautifully crafted, and could be emotionally captivating if you identify at all with the situations. For instance, the premise of the main character being visited by her daughters, whilst in the final stages of a terminal illness, will move you if you've ever had a mom or a daughter.

I had a harder time connecting with the actual characters, except for the main character's younger daughter, with whom I sympathized due to her desire, so like my own, to get the whole story, and the story in this film, though rich, was relayed only to the viewer. Even then, it left enough unresolved bullshit that I found it pretty unsatisfying myself.

Sort of, if you will, putting the "Ick, ick" into "chick flick."

However, where there's a chick flick, there's woman-roles galore (including a near-cameo by Glenn Close that felt sort of like she'd wanted one of the major older-woman-roles and been turned down, so she settled for a peripheral, less-developed character just to be allowed to participate).

The predominantly-female actors of Evening deliver fantastic respective performances, no matter what you think of the story, and because there are so many of them in the film, the question is not "will one of them be nominated for an Oscar?" but "which one?" This, mind you, may fluctuate depending on how many other female roles pop up this year, but that's neither here nor there.

I think Evening tried really hard, but in all the wrong directions. When the closing credits started rolling, my first thought was Whoa. That was just way too much deep.

My second thought, incidentally, was Okay, I sucked down that whole bottle of Aquafina and I have got to find the ladies' room, like, now.

It was worth going to see, 'cos I got to hang out with Ms. F and have overpriced popcorn. Also, it was kind of cool that Natasha Richardson played Vanessa Redgrave's daughter and Mamie Gummer played the younger version of Meryl Streep's character.

And I got to hear Claire Danes sing, and she did so, admirably.

Furthermore, I fancy Hugh Dancy. Mrwowr.

Overall, my review of the film Evening is that I think I would like to get my hands on a copy of the original novel and find out what I missed.

Tags: review; Evening

drinking: iced coffee
listening to: nothing
also mrwowr: patrick wilson, who played a stick