7.0/10
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49 user 78 critic

Starting Out in the Evening (2007)

PG-13 | | Drama, Romance | January 2007 (USA)
An ambitious graduate student convinces a writer that her thesis can resurrect his career.

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(novel), (screenplay) | 1 more credit »

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3 wins & 10 nominations. See more awards »

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Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
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Patti Perkins ...
Dolores
...
...
Casey Davis
Dennis Parlato ...
Author
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Charles
...
Victor
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Sandra Bennett
...
Frederick
...
Cab Driver
...
Nick
Anitha Gandhi ...
Chelsea
...
Second Author
John C. Havens ...
Jeff the Doorman
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Storyline

Against the backdrop of Manhattan's changing literary and publishing world, aging novelist Leonard Schiller is asked by Heather Wolfe, a graduate student and budding literary critic, to agree to interviews. He's reluctant to spend the time: his health is failing and he wants to finish one more book. Also he's worried about his daughter, Ariel, who's approaching 40, underemployed, single and wanting a child. But he agrees, hoping Heather can help resurrect interest in his work. As Heather probes Frank's writing and his past, Ariel reconnects to a former lover. Emotions can be raw and messy, and as relationships change, who gets the better part of the bargain? Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Genres:

Drama | Romance

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, language and brief nudity | See all certifications »

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Details

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Release Date:

January 2007 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Начиная вечером  »

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Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$76,214, 24 November 2007, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$902,115, 29 June 2008
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1.85 : 1
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Did You Know?

Trivia

Stu Richel played the husband of Jill Eikenberry in a scene with her former lover, played by Frank Langella. The Jill-Frank relationship was thought not to be "central to the spine of the story" and was dropped in the final cut. See more »

Goofs

In the scene where Leonard goes back to apartment after stroke, as he sits in the chair there's a boom mic shadow visible on the back wall. The scene then shifts to Lili Taylor, and when it returns the shadow has gone. See more »

Quotes

Leonard Schiller: Freedom isn't the choice the world encourages. You have to wear a suit of armor to defend it.
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Soundtracks

Driving Through
Written and Performed by Jennifer O'Connor
Courtesy of Red Panda Records
By Arrangement with Bank Robber Music
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User Reviews

 
'The Madness of Art'
27 April 2008 | by See all my reviews

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. He has a daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor in another richly hued performance) who is nearing age forty and is unable to bond permanently with a man because of her obsession with having children before her biological clock ticks past fertility. 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. Schiller is absorbed in writing what may be his last novel and can't be bothered with Heather's plea for a series of interviews. But curiosity intervenes and soon heather and Leonard are involved in the process of interviewing, a process which gradually builds into overtones of heather' physical as well as intellectual attraction to Leonard. Meanwhile Ariel observes the process that seems to be infusing life into her father and encourages her to exit her current relationship with Victor (Michael Cumpsty) and re-connect with the true love of her life Casey (Adrian Lester), a man she loves but who refuses to give her the children she so desperately wants. 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.

The pleasures of this film are many, but among the finest is the quality of acting by Langella, Taylor, Ambrose, and Lester. In many ways the story is a parallax of views of life as art that subtly intertwine like a fine string quartet. Why this film was ignored by the Oscars only suggests that movies for the mind take second place to movies for the merriment of entertainment. For people who enjoy the challenge of a meaty story, this film is a must. Grady Harp


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