Evening
No matter what the reviews said, I was bound to see Evening. I don't miss Meryl Streep's movies, ever (a statement that is not inconsistent with the fact that I have not seen all of them). And I was hugely curious about her daughter, Mamie Gummer. What would Meryl Streep's daughter be like? A lot like her mother, is the answer. A lot. Glenn Close as a forbidding matron was too delicious to pass up. I've become a fan of Claire Danes lately, too. Toni Colette, Natasha Richardson, and Eileen Atkins were all icing on the cake. A Newport wedding in the Fifties. How bad could it be?
It took longer than I thought it would for me to like the movie. That's probably because it wastes no time on exposition: you have to figure out relationships as best you can. Once you do - for me, the moment came in the scene where Lila dances with Harris on the night before her wedding - the movie becomes tender and poignant. Whether or not it really makes sense is a question for afterward, when the film is over. That, I find, is when too many people make up their minds about movies. They sit in a café and try to make sense of what they've just seen. If they can do this easily, they're happy about the film. If they can't - if questions about character, motivation, or sheer plausibility begin to sprout, they will feel confused, and probably decide that the film wasn't all that good. That's why I believe that you can't really make up your mind about a movie until you've seen it a second time. Until then, I try to hold on to what I felt in the theatre. What I felt in the theatre was my handkerchief, with which I was constantly wiping away tears.
(Of course, I cry during previews if they're done right.)
¶ Evening.
