Starting Out In The Evening


The Paris Theatre. 58th Street and Fifth Avenue. Beautiful place, opened in 1948, the longest continually operating art cinema in the United States. Single screen, balcony, red velvet sofas downstairs. And a true sign of a good theater: I sat in the last row of the balcony, because it was that crowded, and it was fine. Of course, it helped that it was a good movie; when the movie’s that good, you’re just happy to be there and take it in. But seriously, last row in the whole place and I could see and hear just fine.

The movie was Starting Out In The Evening, written by Fred Parnes and directed by Andrew Wagner, shot on High Definition Video and although it shows here and there, because it’s such a great movie (can’t call it film!) it didn’t distract me and was fine. But yes, here and there, the richness was missing. Still…

It takes a special actor to pull off what Frank Langella pulls off in Starting Out In The Evening: believable aging novelist struggling to complete his final work, entering into a brief dalliance with a woman a third his age (Lauren Ambrose) and, after suffering a stroke, starting his last great novel over, from page one. That this is pulled off makes this movie a success and certainly well-worth seeing. Just the fact that it’s a believable portrait of a writer makes it stand-out from most other portraits of writers, which generally fail to get under the surface and beyond the clichés.

I only wish the vastly under-utilized Jessica Hecht had been given a larger part; I have to wonder what she might have done with the role of the writer’s daughter, nearing 40 and aching to have a child, which went to Lili Taylor. Not that Lili Taylor is bad; it’s just that she keeps the performance so close to her that there’s no room to breathe, no room for expansion, no poetry. It’s all so rooted in the moment, her eyes always pleading or narrowing. You can’t say that she’s a bad actress, it just feels like she’s trying too hard at times. But overall, a movie with much to ruminate about afterwards, to mull over (touching on death, the greatest theme of all), and that’s a rare thing these days.

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