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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 20 September 2007

Claire Danes as the young Ann in Evening

Starry night for the girls

EVENING
Directed by Lajos Koltai
Certificate 12a

YOU could call this a ladies’ night out for the thinking woman. One thing’s for sure: it isn’t a hen party for the girls. The film-makers are trying to promote it for its blue-chip cast of “the greatest actresses of our time”, and presumably hope that men will tag along too.
We’re certainly into a class act, judging by the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Natasha Richardson, Eileen Atkins and Toni Collete all scrabbling for pole position. But look closer at the theme, and it may not be enough.
Let us start with Vanessa, as a one-time singer named Ann lying on her sick bed racked with guilt over some dreadful secret from her past, while her home-care nurse (Atkins) and her daughters (Richardson and Collette) scurry around wondering what to do.
Flashback several years to well-heeled Newport, Rhode Island, and the ritzy wedding of an old school friend (Mamie Gummer) who is having doubts about whether she should go through with the ceremony. One sight of the handsome groom (Patrick Wilson) makes Ann go weak at the knees – and trouble begins as other guests fall for him too.
Cue high melodrama and a heap of soul-searching. The acting is fine, but it isn’t a barrel of laughs.

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