Evening
Director: Lajos Koltai. Screenplay: Susan Minot, Michael Cunningham, based on Susan Minot’s novel. Cinematography: Gyula Pados. Film editing: Allyson C. Johnson. Production design: Caroline Hanania. Music: Jan A.P. Kaczmarek. Producer: Jeff Sharp. With: Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Natasha Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave, Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Eileen Atkins, Glenn Close. USA. 117 min. 2007.
Visiting their mother on what may be her deathbed, two sisters—one independent and dissatisfied with life, the other a conventional wife and mother—hear a cryptic remark that hints at a long-buried secret in her past; the rest of the movie alternates between glimpses of the sisters’ strained relationship and long flashbacks to the ritzy New England wedding where their mom’s life took an unexpected and fateful turn. The film’s continual leaps through time and space recall the more brilliant narrative shifts of “The Hours,” based on coscreenwriter Cunningham’s radiant novel. This picture is far less ambitious, but it gathers a mild amount of emotional steam thanks to splendid acting by Danes as the mother in her youth; Redgrave as the same character in the present; Collette and Richardson, who is Redgrave’s real-life daughter, as the sisters; Streep as the present-day incarnation of the long-ago bride; and especially Gummer, who is Streep’s real-life daughter, as the bride in the original wedding. The men in the cast also acquit themselves well, making this an engaging movie if not an exciting one.
– David Sterritt
