Starting Out in the Evening

Plot synopsis:
An aging, sickly author, Leonard Schiller, is writing his last novel. He hasn't published a new book in years, even though his first four novels were well regarded in their time.A young, attractive grad student named Heather is writing her graduate thesis on him. She convinces him to take precious time away from his writing (which takes a few meetings of persuasion) to let her interview him. Heather is inspired by his writing and clearly takes a romantic interest in him.In addition, Leonard's daughter is grappling with starting a family without a husband while she falls in love again with a former boyfriend who does not want to have children.After Leonard warms to Heather over interviews about his writing, she becomes more flirtatious with him, even inviting him to lie down with her in his bed. She nods off to sleep, but the next morning they clearly have an unexpected comfort with each other.Heather hears from an editor that Leonard has not been entirely honest about the demise of his marriage, so she confronts him further about his personal life. He becomes upset about her discontent, but invites her to spend the night, and they share a passionate kiss.Thereafter, when Heather presents her first draft of the thesis to Leonard, he gives her the key to his apartment and invites her to visit whenever she likes. Suddenly she cools to his affections, which is more evident after she recoils when he kisses her.Leonard reads the thesis and gives her a thorough critique, which she appreciates despite the fact that he disagrees with much of what she has written. Soon thereafter, Leonard suffers a stroke, and Heather helps him to the hospital.After a month of recovery, Leonard seems happy to have Heather visit him again, yet when he reaches to touch her face he suddenly slaps her. Heather is overcome with emotion, seeming to know that she has done something wrong but does not deserve his condemnation.Leonard's daughter agrees to let her boyfriend help him to a doctor's visit, and on the walk back Leonard becomes sick but the boyfriend helps him through his pain very kindly. Later, in apparent gratitude and resolve, Leonard gives the manuscript of his new novel to the boyfriend, leaving the fate of the book in his hands.The film closes on a quiet evening with Leonard preparing for bed. He walks away from his toast and tea though, and sits down at his typewriter with a blank page in it. After long contemplation, he starts out to write again.

Tags: romantic

Review:
i saw this film at the austin film festival and didn't know what to expect, but i really appreciated the character study of Leonard Schiller (as masterfully played by Frank Langella) and his contrast with Lauren Ambrose's character as a young graduate student doing her master's thesis on the aging writer who is no longer appreciated and has resigned his life to a kind of monastic, slow work on a novel that he may never finish.
Lili Taylor plays Langella's daughter trying to direct the course of her life as she turns 40 and re-enters a relationship with an ex, played with great thoughtfulness by Adrian Lester (who I last remember as the narrator character from Primary Colors).
The main reason to watch is Frank Langella, playing Leonard Schiller, an aging novelist who the world has forgotten and who is tempted to hope that his name might be revived by an idolatrous grad student who wants to do her thesis on his work.
The relationship these two embark upon is complicated to say the least, and both actors navigate the tricky terrain well.A subplot involves Leonard's daughter (played by Lili Taylor, who it was a pleasure to see again) and her rekindled relationship with a man of whom Leonard does not approve (Adrian Lester)."Starting Out in the Evening" is one of those ultra-sombre movies that takes place in the dead of winter, when everything is cold and dead, and in which the predominant color scheme is brown and gray.
The attention to detail was wonderful - Leonard Schiller wearing shirts and ties many many years old, using spoons and tea cups from another era, sitting on a couch from the 40's, reading by lamps with pleated shades, walls and cupboards painted many times over, using a typewriter (hearing the clack clack of the keys was music), contrasted by Heather's tic tic on her laptop, her messy bed in the background, typing by a stylish modern lamp.
Lauren Ambrose was the perfect counterpoint to Frank Langella, and the subplot with Lili Taylor as Ariel Schiller and Adrian Lester was touching and effective.
I saw this film at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.Starting Out in the Evening is based on the novel by Brian Morton, and stars Frank Langella in an understated role as Leonard Schiller, a once great novelist and now-retired literary professor.
Further distracting him from his novel is his genial but occasionally strained relationship with his daughter Ariel (Lily Taylor), who is nearing 40 and wanting a baby, but stuck back in a relationship with her ex-boyfriend Casey (Adrian Lester), who is most decidedly against the idea.Another complication comes in the form of a young grad student, Heather (Lauren Ambrose), who has made Leonard the subject of her master's thesis.
The conversations that Leonard and Heather have cover the gamut of literary criticism and the creative process, touching on issues such as whether an author's personal life should inform their work, and whether an author can be pigeonholed into a single thematic thread.As Leonard becomes more invested in Heather, these themes end up leading all the characters reaching pivotal decisions in their lives, paralleling the thrust of Leonard's early work around personal freedom.Langella gives a fine performance as Leonard, who sees his time running out, and wonders if he has enough time, energy, and creativity left to finish one last book.
Lauren Ambrose leaves Six Feet Under behind her as Heather, a driven but self-centered woman who wants to fit Leonard's books into her own preconceived notions and feelings, dismissing as less important those that don't fit the mold.Lily Taylor was great as Ariel, a woman wanting the closeness and depth of relationship that she can't get from her father, so much so that she is willing to subordinate her own wants and needs.
And Casey doesn't come across as a complete jerk; there's a genuine love there that he doesn't fully appreciate.All-in-all, Starting Out in the Evening ends up the night as an enjoyable movie, with good performances all around..
STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING is a quietly moving work of art, a film adapted from Brian Morton's novel by screenwriters Fred Parnes and Andrew Wagner and directed by Andrew Wagner that dares to take us to the wall with decisions we make about how we conduct our lives and negotiate the changes that can either be stumbling blocks or stimuli for creative awareness, It has much to say about the creative process of writing, a theme upon which it first appears to be based, but it more importantly urges us to examine how we live - how we make use of this moment of time in which we inhabit a body in the universe.
Leonard Schiller (in an extraordinarily understated performance by Frank Langella) is an aging author, a man whose first two novels seem to set the literary world on fire, but whose next two novels languished on the shelves and slipped into the same plane of obscurity Schiller finds his life since the death of hi wife.
Into their lives comes Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose), a bright young graduate student who has elected to write her master's thesis on the works of Leonard Schiller.
The manner in these characters interact and learn from each other the importance of sharing Life instead of obsessing with selfish goals brings the drama to a rather open-ended close, another factor that makes this story significantly better than most themes of May-December romance and unilateral coping with self centered directions.
He is a private man who has shunned notoriety and wants to stay that way, but ends up in going along with the young woman.Leonard, a widower, has a daughter, Ariel, a woman in her early forties who believes her biological clock is running out of time if she is to have a baby.
The film which is based on a Brian Morton book, which we haven't read, translates beautifully for the screen.Frank Langella is simply marvelous playing Leonard Schiller.
Obviously, the actor knows well how the character he is playing reacts to all the new sensations he discovers at a late age when the young woman comes into his life.
She is an eager young woman who probably has no intention of falling in love with the older man, yet, in her admiration for the author, she leaps into a serious situation that might not mean anything to her, yet, it has given Leonard a new taste in life.Lily Taylor's Ariel is a complicated character.
Langella's performance is so textured and subtle that we can feel his pain while recollecting and his anxiety while (almost) touching Ambrose (the grad student) for the first time.This is director Andrew Wagner's first real film and he displays quite a knack for filming faces and allowing the pace of the film to mirror the reserved, simmering nature of Langella's character.
It should come as no surprise that this quietly affecting character study barely left a trace in theaters last year since movies about literature and the writing process are hardly fodder for young teenaged boys looking for outsized CGI-saturated extravaganzas.
However, co-writer/director Andrew Wagner's ("The Talent Given Us") sophomore effort benefits immeasurably from Frank Langella's deeply nuanced performance as a once-renowned novelist long forgotten and facing his own mortality as he attempts to finish a valedictorian work ten years in development.
It's been nearly four decades since his film debut as the egotistical, caddish writer in Frank Perry's "Diary of a Mad Housewife", but what a treat to see him bookend that performance with this one.Langella portrays New York-based Leonard Schiller, whose four published novels have been out of print for years.
Precipitously, an enthusiastic graduate student named Heather Wolfe walks into Schiller's intensely private life to request a series of interviews for a masters thesis she wants to write about him.
A typically strong and thoughtful performance by the great Frank Langella and good supporting actors make this study of a once promising New York Jewish novelist in decline worth watching, but stagnation mars the plot and the film.
Along comes an aggressive young redhead from Brown named Heather (Lauren Ambrose) to interview Leonard for her MA thesis on his work.
The screenplay (and presumably the book by Brian Morton on which Fred Parnes and Wagner based it) valiantly tries to deal with a novelist in terms of his novelsonly the approach is hardly what you could call "literary." Heather turns out to love this writer because strong women characters in his first two books inspired her to break with a clingy boyfriend and go away to college.
But the more I watched, my love for the film gained momentum and really started to grow.I would recommend this movie for readers, writers, and anyone who enjoys a good drama..
Frank Langella is Leonard Schiller, an elderly writer whose life is redefined by a series of interviews with young literary critic Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose).
Although it takes place in the present day, the characters might seem more at home if the time frame was, say, the early to mid-'70s.That said, Frank Langella's turn as the aging novelist is wonderful.
At times the movie seems to work better than it does overall thanks to the contrast between the quiet, deliberate pace at which Langella plays the aging writer and the less physically comfortable manner of the other characters.Sadly, it's all in the service of a well-worn story about artistic and personal renewal and creative purity.
Throughout the entire movie, you have the feeling that the screenwriters were thinking "Oh, this will be good!" For example, when Langella hits Ambrose instead of kissing her, the moment was not dramatic or surprising, but you could sense that you were SUPPOSED to be shocked.
But along comes starry-eyed graduate student Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose) who wants to write a thesis on Schiller and has dreams of reviving his reputation.
At first Schiller rejects Wolfe's efforts to interview him, but she is persistent and Schiller ultimately gives in to her request for what appear to be several reasons: she is young and pretty; she might actually boost his reputation; she might be the stimulation he needs to fire his imagination to put some spark into his final novel.As might be expected a relationship develops between Schiller and Wolfe that goes beyond that of writer/interrogator; whether you will like this movie will depend to a large extent on how believable you find that relationship.
When Wolfe offers an opinion of R.K. Narayan's writing over breakfast Schiller expresses his delight at having such a conversation, a conversation only appreciated by the cognoscenti in an era of memoirs, self-help, travel, and cook books.Schiller's neurotic daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor) is well developed and well played by Taylor.This is a quiet movie (which means that some will find it a chore to sit through) that should appeal to avid readers and academics as well as those who appreciate character development..
One almost has to watch it not for the controlling idea but rather, for the bits and pieces of what is said between people, because these are pretty real characters who do turn into people.The film does not revolve around one dramatic value, but manages to cast some light in various places which shimmers nicely all around.
a. A film that at last has some substance...the story of an aging writer, trying to come to terms with his work, as well as his relationship with his 40 year old daughter...and his own waning sexuality.
His kindness to Ariel's father is one of the most touching scenes in the movie.Lauren Ambrose's Heather, on the other hand, is not put off by Leonard's reluctance to cooperate on her analytical project of his books for her Master's thesis.
Frank Langella's performance--a closely observed portrait of an elderly Manhattan novelist and university professor, once the darling of the city's intellectual elite but now forgotten and out of print--is the only reason to watch this movie.
Langella is solid in his performance as he attempts to write his last great novel, while being distracted by the grad student - who turns out to use him in more ways than just to get her thesis material.
In New York, Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella) was a literary star once upon a time but is now a faded novelist struggling to finish his final book.
His portrayal as the aging author Leonard Schiller was masterful, understated and honest and I think one of his better movie performances.
The cast also includes Lauren Ambrose as Heather Wolfe (a Brown graduate student who does a thesis on the author), Lili Taylor as his adult daughter, Ariel; and Adrian Lester as Casey (her boyfriend).
I won't spoil it for others but it's worth watching if you like quiet, dramatic films with a great cast especially Frank Langella (one of America's greatest actors)..
College professor Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella) writes the kind of novels that - in this age of tell-all confessionals and ghost-written puff pieces - publishers no longer want to publish and readers no longer want to read.
However, the publisher's lack of interest is more than matched by the intense interest shown by Heather (Lauren Ambrose), an attractive, rather pushy grad student who's writing her masters thesis on Schiller's body of work and, in that guise, is now worming her way into the author's private life as well.
Further complicating matters for the septuagenarian is the fact that his middle-aged and somewhat overprotective daughter, Ariel (Lili Taylor), is desperately in love with a man (Adrian Lester) who doesn't want to have children, even though becoming a mother would appear to be the one defining goal of her life at the moment.Based on the novel by Brian Morton, "Starting Out in the Evening" is a muted, introspective tale of four adults whose outlooks on life appear to be at constant odds with one another.
Moreover, Leonard feels his daughter should come to see her feelings for Casey as an obstacle to getting what she really wants out of life, while Ariel believes she can string the relationship along for awhile at least and still someday have the child she so desperately yearns for.Co-written by Fred Parnes and director Andrew Wagner, the movie is, at times, almost too sedate, too muted in its storytelling for us to become fully engaged in the lives of its characters.
No scene felt unnecessary, too long or too short.The story centers around Leonard Schiller (beautifully played by Frank Langella), an aged novelist past his prime, and his daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor), who has repeated the mistakes of her own mother, living in the shadows of another persons ambition.
Enter Heather, an ambitious (and rather improbable) Brown graduate student that is writing her thesis on Leonard Schiller, and the drama starts.Clearly not for everyone, no action, no sex (although I was worried for a while), no fun, but a very interesting movie about life with absolutely excellent acting..
Given that our characters in the novels are taken from our lives, maybe his life had just become too uninteresting.It would also be nice to have some young, energetic graduate student decide to write their Master's Thesis on our work.
Besides bringing a little excitement into a dull life, this young literary critic can also point out the changes in your writing and cause you to examine your life and why you are not getting anywhere on that 5th novel.Psychotherapy can achieve the same results, but a writer's thoughts and feelings are there open for examination.
Frank Langella is great in the role of Leonard, an aged writer whose life is shaken by an inquisitive post grad student (played deliciously by Lauren Ambrose) with her offer of another beginning for the writer whose work has long been out of print.
While the movie is a nice study of human relationships, it is not so successful in portraying its central characters: an aging writer and a young academic.
Real life is rarely like that.My biggest complaint about the film is on the authenticity of the main characters: Leonard and Heather.
I thought all the characters were beautifully played and felt that the subplot involving the author, Leonard Schiller's, daughter Ariel and her relationships was excellent and revealing, but thought that the grad.
To give the character credit, she does have one good insight into Schiller and his writing, but her inability to let her preconceptions about him and his work go and deal with both honestly leave the audience with the impression of a shallow woman who has magically managed to fire the author with new life.
Starting Out in the Evening is one of those movies, despite the fact that it comes to DVD in a little over a month, making it one of those dumped films in the end.
I almost wish this film could have been just Frank Langella's subtle and poignant portrayal of Schiller opposite Lauren Ambrose's radiant yet naïve grad student Heather Wolfe.
It is just that on the whole, she and Lester become pawns in the film serving only to run their course like the characters of Schiller's work.
Frank Langella, in probably the performance of his career and maybe the best male lead I saw from 2007, plays an aging New York novelist and retired professor whose work has lapsed into obscurity, but who has a fresh-faced young academic (Lauren Ambrose) writing a master's thesis on him and (naively) promising to help restore his reputation.
Lauren Ambrose is a graduate student at Brown who worms her way into the quiet life of elderly ex-professor and formerly famous Jewish novelist, Frank Langella.
It asks you to feel something for these people and then it gives you something worth feeling.Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella) is an aging and forgotten author who's laboring over what he knows will be the last novel he ever writes.
Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose) is a college student who fell in love with Schiller's first two novels and wants to write her thesis about him and his work.
The other story involves Lili Taylor as the author's daughter Ariel Schiller.