Pensive Gargoyle

The movie Evening introduces us to Ann Lord, an old woman dying of cancer who, in a morphine-induced fog, incoherently jabbers about mysterious people and events from her past, thoroughly confusing her two daughters—“What was her big mistake?”  “Who’s Harris?”  “What does she mean ‘Harris and I killed Buddy?’”  The movie flashes back and forth between scenes of the old woman on her deathbed and scenes from the weekend of her best friend Lila’s wedding over 50 years ago.  We soon find out that Harris, a young doctor who she met at Lila’s wedding, was Ann’s one true love (or so she says), and she longs for him even on her deathbed.

The ensemble cast of acclaimed Hollywood actresses—Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, Claire Danes, Glen Close, and Toni Collette—might well be the estrogen-charged equivalent of the posse of famous actors in the Ocean’s movies.  Unfortunately, even their talent and flair couldn’t redeem this poorly written film, which, as a whole, was disappointing.  The film seemed to *yawn* drag on and on and on.  Its flow was labored, and just when things start to get somewhat interesting in the flashback scenes, all crescendo is jettisoned as we are abruptly brought back to the scenes in the present which are tedious at best, mind-numbing at worst.  (One exception is the scene in which Lila and Ann are reunited after a 50 year hiatus from their friendship.)  Unlike the découpage of scenes in La Môme, the flashbacks did nothing to contribute to the film.

Despite its faults, I was still stirred by the film.  It would be remiss to simply treat Evening as a tragic love story between Ann and Harris.  If this were the case, the movie would be utterly unconvincing and a failure because Ann and Harris’ affair is hollow and trite (it only lasted two days, after all).  Their “love’s” failed realization cannot be mourned as if it were a truly profound, unselfish love.  Fortunately, that’s not all there is to this film.  Instead, I think the heart of Evening is the complicated but deep love between mother and child.  As an aged Lila says, “We (women) are mysterious creatures, and at the end, so much of it turns out not to matter.”  If we look at the film in this light, we see that while it may be difficult to understand why Ann spends so much time pining for Harris on her deathbed, and while it may even be pathetic that the majority of her final thoughts are devoted to their shallow, immature “love,” this element of the film was necessary as the part that “turns out not to matter.”  So, while many of Ann’s flashbacks were of Harris, the last one—the one that counts in the end—is a moving scene in which the young Ann, ignoring her screaming husband and dinner on the stove, holds her two daughters and sings to them.  Even though she didn’t have Harris—and even though she was consumed by him—all that mattered in the end were the daughters whom she loved.

In the end, Ann tells her daughter that “there’s no such thing as a mistake” only after claiming at the beginning that “Harris was my biggest mistake.”  I wonder why she thought Harris was her biggest mistake.  Was it because she felt guilty about Buddy’s fate?  Was it because she didn’t marry him?  Or was it because she spent so much time dwelling on what could have been with him?  Even though there will always be consequences for our actions or our decisions, I do agree with her that there is no such thing as a mistake.

So, I guess that even though Evening wasn’t necessarily one to remember, I’m glad I saw it.  I just won’t ever watch it again.