Evening

To me the female cast alone is worth seeing Evening. I always find it interesting how little Claire Danes seems to work. I don't know if that's a personal choice or if Hollywood has for some reason forgotten about her. What I do know is anytime she is in a movie I look forward to it and when she gets to be in a movie with a cast like this one it is even more worth it. Considering the fact that both Claire and Meryl Streep were in The Hours and Evening was written by the author of The Hours that was even more reason to see the movie. Not to mention the story looked and sounded really good.

The movie wasn't quite what I expected it to be. It was a good movie it just wasn't quite as moving as it could have been. The story also wasn't told the way it seemed like it would be. Also unfortunately Michael Cunningham makes a better novelist than a screenwriter. The movement of the story through the dialogue just wasn't what it should be for a movie. One scene I did find interesting was the one with Meryl and Vanessa. It was very much like the scene between Meryl and Claire in The Hours.

All of the performances were very good. Mamie Gummer who played Lila was very good. It wasn't until The Hours that I truly started to like Meryl. As my friend Liz Taylor's House and I later figured out it was because I never felt an emotional connection to Meryl. I must say that Mamie (who it turns out is Meryl's daughter) does not suffer that same problem. I was very much involved in her performance. Should she choose to continue in the industry I believe she could have a career very similar to her mothers. Although in this day and age it probably won't come with as many Oscar nominations as Meryl's.

I do wish that Natasha Richardson and Toni Collette had played opposite roles. I'm not a big Toni Collette fan and I would have prefered to see more of Natasha than Toni.

It'll be very interesting to see what if any awards nominations come from this movie.

Potential Spoilers Ahead:

From the previews and what I read I thought that it was about Vanessa telling this story of a weekend that changed her life to her daughters as she was dying. That isn't how it was. In fact Vanessa, Natasha, and Toni were rarely in the same scene. Instead it was that Vanessa was dreaming about that weekend as she laid dying. I didn't really care for that version of the story. There was really no need for Natasha and Toni to be in the story for the most part.

I did enjoy the story but they left out some very crucial information that I feel may have been better worked into the story had she been telling it to her daughters. I was left wondering why Ann and Harris didn't end up together. Was the tradgedy of Buddy's death just too much for them to deal with? Or did they just return to their normal lives thinking they would see each other again and then got so wrapped up in those lives they didn't see each other again?

Also when Lila comes to Ann's death bed I was left wondering how long it had been since they had seen or spoken too each other. I didn't know if they had drifted apart after Buddy's death. If perhaps Lila blamed Ann and Harris for his death or what. I found this a very odd question to leave hanging.

I also really didn't care for the side story involving Toni's character and her trying to come to terms with being pregnant. It felt very forced. As if they decided they didn't have enough story with just the story of Lila's wedding weekend. When in fact that was plenty of story and they could have fleshed it out and answered those lingering questions if they hadn't wasted so much time with the part of the story that took place in the present.

I paid full price for this movie and it was very much worth it for me. I feel most people would prefer it at matinee price though. I don't know if this will make since to a lot of people but, it really is more of a matinee movie overall.