Evening–reviewed

Evening was a noble disappointment. It was beautifully filmed with lavish production value, and the cast was very strong. But neither the script nor the direction took full advantage of those other considerable assets.

All the characters came across as less than they were meant to, trending toward flat and unengaging. Clare Dane’s character was particularly less than advertised, that is less than the characters around her and she herself said she was. Most telling the moment which was said to be her greatest triumph, when she sang at her friend’s wedding, was not convincing. Danes herself, with her characteristic facial expression just before she began to sing, an expression that suggested uncertainty and distraction, undercut the power of the song to come. I suppose the director included that to show that the character overcame that initial worry and then moved triumphantly into a focused and effective presentation, but this was not compelling. It was especially discordant that her theme was love, time and again, when we’ve seen that the bride was so full of misgiving.

One puzzle was the extensive use of close-ups. Granted this device worked to dramatize and illuminate the complexities of Redgrave’s character and of her skills as an actress, but it was not clear that other characters either benefited from that same extreme close range shot or that their faces were equally compelling.

My main thought was that the movie was commenting on meaning and reflection, with Redgrave’s character as the central story, our central focus. The film suggests that most of our lives are a mystery to others and even to ourselves. It means to suggest, further, that we may affirm that life even when we don’t fully understand it, and, as Toni Collette’s character discovers, affirm it even in the face of both doubts and death. But just as Collette’s character stumbles into that affirmation, gradually disclosing and accepting her accidental pregnancy, the film seems to stumble along without convincing us that the randomness of the juxtaposed scenes and the incompleteness of our and the characters’ understanding are all both OK and moving toward some greater meaning and purpose.

Its disappointment was noble in that it was attempting to say something about class at a time when that class was about to change.  When an aristocracy was about to descend into the middle class.  But the workings of the film seemed too mechanical, plot driven to carry the poetic quality that the photography seemed to suggest.  It left the impression of more an exercise than the elegy it meant to be.