Evening (2007)

Directed by Lajos Koltai (MEETING VENUS) with a screenplay by Michael Cunningham (THE HOURS) and Susan Minot (based on her novel), EVENING follows a dying woman (Vanessa Redgrave) as she hallucinates about her past (the film fluctuates between the past and the present) and the choices she made and her friends made that brought her to her present existence. It’s a lovely, fragile memory piece that, for the most part, does a delicate balancing act between schmaltz and honest sentiment and truths. The level of talent in the cast is near extraordinary. Besides Redgrave, there’s Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Claire Danes (playing the young Redgrave), Natasha Richardson (Redgrave’s real life daughter playing her daughter), Eileen Atkins, Toni Collette, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Barry Bostwick and Mamie Gummer (Streep’s daughter, playing the young Streep). The formidable cinematography in Panavision wide screen is by Gyula Pados. Alas, the film has never received its proper due.