|

New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search
Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

63
11th Hour, The
47
27 Dresses
29
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
39
Alvin and the Chipmunks
81
Bamako
84
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
47
Bella
68
Business of Being Born, The
69
Charlie Wilson's War
64
Cloverfield
30
Cover
68
Delirious
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
43
Final Season, The
41
First Sunday
51
Golden Compass, The
49
Good Night, The
65
Great Debaters, The
63
Hannah Takes the Stairs
52
Hollywood Dreams
7
Hottie and the Nottie, The
60
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
15
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
81
Juno
70
Lars and the Real Girl
47
Lions for Lambs
41
Mad Money
71
Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
xx
Moondance Alexander
53
Music Within
77
Nanking
44
Nina's Heavenly Delights
24
One Missed Call
74
Orphanage, The
30
Over Her Dead Body
39
P.S. I Love You
37
P2
46
Reservation Road
55
Resurrecting the Champ
57
Romulus, My Father
85
Savages, The
78
Starting Out in the Evening
83
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
57
Teeth
92
There Will Be Blood
38
Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
32
Untraceable
63
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
68
War Dance
71
Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, The
43
Youth Without Youth
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
92
There Will Be Blood
85
Savages, The
84
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
83
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
81
Juno
81
Bamako
78
Starting Out in the Evening
77
Nanking
74
Orphanage, The
71
Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, The
71
Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
70
Lars and the Real Girl
69
Charlie Wilson's War
68
Business of Being Born, The
68
Delirious
68
War Dance
65
Great Debaters, The
64
Cloverfield
63
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
63
11th Hour, The
63
Hannah Takes the Stairs
60
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
57
Romulus, My Father
57
Teeth
55
Resurrecting the Champ
53
Music Within
52
Hollywood Dreams
51
Golden Compass, The
49
Good Night, The
47
Bella
47
Lions for Lambs
47
27 Dresses
46
Reservation Road
44
Nina's Heavenly Delights
43
Youth Without Youth
43
Final Season, The
41
Mad Money
41
First Sunday
39
Alvin and the Chipmunks
39
P.S. I Love You
38
Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
37
P2
32
Untraceable
30
Over Her Dead Body
30
Cover
29
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
24
One Missed Call
15
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
7
Hottie and the Nottie, The
xx
Moondance Alexander
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Starting Out in the Evening
Roadside Attractions
 |
|
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sexual content, language and brief nudity
Starring
Frank Langella,
Lauren Ambrose,
Lili Taylor,
Karl Bury,
Anitha Gandhi,
Sean T. Krishnan,
Jessica Hecht,
and
Adrian Lester
All that remains for Leonard Schiller is his work. His one enduring goal in life is to finish the novel whose completion has eluded him for ten years. With his earlier books out of print, he has learned to starve himself of the desire for the success he was once so close to, though beneath this practice lies a pull for his work to be rediscovered. Schiller’s main contact to the world is through his daughter, Ariel, with whom he has settled into an amiable relationship, though he must hide his disappointment that at 39 she remains befuddled by life, still looking for love and a father for a longed-for child. Schiller’s world is shaken when Heather Wolfe, a smart, ambitious graduate student, convinces him that she can use her thesis on his work to bring him back into the literary world spotlight. (Roadside Attractions)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Fred Parness
Andrew Wagner
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Andrew Wagner
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 22, 2008
Theatrical: November 23, 2007
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
111 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
Above all is Langella, achingly vulnerable under layers of flesh. In one scene, alone, he eats peanut butter intensely, thoughtfully, and nothing he could do as Hamlet would seem deeper or more poetic.

100
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Intelligent, involving and conspicuously adult, Starting Out in the Evening is almost shocking in its distinctiveness, its ability to create high drama from an unlikely source.

100
The Hollywood Reporter
James Greenberg
Succeeds so beautifully because of a compelling story, great acting, intelligent writing and sensitive direction.

100
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The movie is carefully modulated to draw us deeper and deeper into the situation, and uses no contrived plot devices to superimpose plot jolts on what is, after all, a story involving four civilized people who are only trying, each in a different way, to find happiness.

100
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
A rapturous, ruefully funny flight of sympathetic imagination. Featuring the first movie role for Frank Langella that ranks with his best stage parts, it's a rare kind of American movie.

91
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Andrew Wagner has made a lovely comedy of death and rebirth.

90
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
What is so remarkable about Mr. Langella is that he seems to hold Leonard’s intellectual cosmos inside him, to make it implicit in the man’s every gesture and pause.

90
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
It's rare to see a movie adaptation in which a filmmaker has taken so much care in translating the odd little qualities that make a particular novel special, to preserve the complex and fragile threads of feeling between characters that are often much easier to grasp on the page.

88
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Whether this reserved, hypercautious widower can deal with the arousal she creates in him - let alone be physically able to act on it - is one of the many layers of tension that drive this unusual and absolutely riveting dance.

88
USA Today
Claudia Puig
We are slowly and mightily drawn into this intimate story, which is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally moving.

83
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Director Andrew Wagner, adapting a novel by Brian Morton, is sometimes understated to a fault, but his work with the actors, who also include Lili Taylor as Leonard's daughter, is impeccable.

80
Film Threat
Rick Kisonak
Movies about writers are almost always romanticized affairs but Starting Out in the Evening is the rare exception. It is at once an elegy for the vanishing generation of Bellow, Cheever, Mailer and Updike and a dead on indictment of our culture’s current state.

80
The New Yorker
David Denby
Langella is superb, and Starting Out in the Evening is a classy film.

80
Newsweek
David Ansen
Like most of this refreshingly subtle film, it's not what you expect, and it's not something you've seen before.

80
Variety
Scott Foundas
Director Andrew Wagner draws topnotch work from a pro cast in Starting Out in the Evening, a wise, carefully observed chamber drama.

80
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
This wise, observant, and exquisitely tacit chamber piece complicates every May-December, academic-novel cliché in the book.

75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Langella delivers a master class in acting. He's playing Leonard Schiller, an aging author aching from the loss of his wife, a weak heart and literary neglect.

75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
It's a gentle, unhurried drama about how people can connect with each other through conversation, nonverbal gestures, and writing.

75
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Taylor also makes an impressive comeback as the conflicted daughter who instinctively distrusts Heather, but Starting Out in the Evening is first and foremost a triumph by Frank Langella.

75
Chicago Tribune
Jessica Reaves
Because the characters are richly realized and their dialogue rings true, we stick around, rooting for something like a happy ending.

75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
If the film has a weakness, it's an ending that's so vague and open to interpretation that it's not at all clear how director Andrew Wagner ultimately wants us to feel about these self-absorbed characters and their precious literary concerns. But the performances carry the day.

75
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
It never commits the sin of sentimentalizing old age, as Hollywood usually does when it deigns to admit that people over 55 exist.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
This is a human-sized drama about people with contradictory motives, trying to help or use each other.

75
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Fact is, Starting Out is pretty dry stuff as a movie, even as it's enlivened by vivid acting.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
A "small" movie. But in its keenly observed examination of strangers who become intimates - and of family members who remain, in part, strangers - it has big things to say.

70
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Part of Morton's achievement is to present all four people through the viewpoints of the other three; Wagner can't do that, but the performances are so nuanced that the characters remain multilayered, and they're not the sort of people we're accustomed to finding in commercial films.

67
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
It's also and most interestingly about the writing process itself, a difficult feat to pull off on film, which Wagner and co-screenwriter Fred Parnes manage to display with unvarnished realism.

63
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
Taylor is effective as a woman struggling to take control of her life, but Ambrose's work feels shallow in comparison.

63
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
A gentle collection of scenes that work and scenes that don't.

63
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Intelligently acted but oddly stagnant adaptation of Brian Morton's acclaimed novel.

63
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
Starting Out never builds to the explosive climax it seems to be heading for, which I suppose is a good thing for its overall integrity, but maybe not so good for its motion-picture value.

50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Noel Murray
Wagner and company fail to follow Langella's primary rule of storytelling: "Follow the characters around until they do something interesting."

50
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Wallows in bleakness and settles for sentimental gestures.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 14 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Discuss this movie in our forums |
|