A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

I can't believe I sat for two hours to learn I shouldn't be afraid of making mistakes.

Here are some of the ideas it heralds and attempts to reinforce for the sake of entertainment:It is important to have children because that is how real love comes.Having a child will help me/others to be happy because then I will be a mother/father/aunt/etc. which is more fulfilling than not being a mother/father/aunt/etc.There is no such thing as a completely fulfilling relationship. People are naturally, intrinsically isolated and lonely. It is normal.If I don't have a family I will be lost and lonely.The happiest I can be is when I am in love.A love affair will make me unhappy because it ends. It is inevitable that one is unfulfilled.Ultimately you can't have what you want and you will never be truly happy.You will die unfulfilled which is fine as long as you have children; who ideally are about to have their own children.All of this is part of life's rich pattern. Suffering is beautiful.

Cinematographer Lajos Koltai (who filmed Szabo's 'Being Julia' of 2004) here enters the grandmaster category of great directors, and has made a masterpiece. This film also contains one of the finest performances of Vanessa Redgrave ever filmed. She may be one of the world's leading actresses, but here she goes even beyond that. Never has anyone conveyed so much while lying asleep in bed, or oozed such strong atmosphere from beneath closed eyelids. She really is supernatural. Meryl Streep in her cameo appearance, and Glenn Close in a supporting role with minimal dialogue also exude all the power of Olympian goddesses, and dominate the screen with every flicker of an eyelash, riveting our attention with all the things they don't say but are thinking. The film's younger actresses, no matter how well they do (and they do very well) cannot but be eclipsed by these titans! However, the one young actor whose work is as intense and powerful as those Queens of the Screen is the amazing Hugh Dancy, who gives them a run for their money. He is so brilliant as a feckless, hopelessly disturbed and agonised young man that one fears for him offscreen! (That's a joke, I've met him and he's really perfectly normal.) Patrick Wilson as Harris also does superbly. Everybody is good. This is a total success. The film is extraordinarily profound, takes its time (like Visconti), and probes the regions of memory, the borderlines of death (Eileen Atkins as a night nurse who doubles as an angel is extraordinary, and her costume works, which is even more remarkable), and the gap between the generations. Lost love, failed hopes, wasted lives, and above all the tragic interventions of Fate, it's all there. What a melodrama! But this is too sophisticated for people who watch TV soaps, it is really very highbrow, ultra-sensitive, and frankly is Great Art. In the future, when people make lists of classics of the screen for the first decade of this century, this film will be there.

What a cast. Every actress we've ever loved, short of Judy Garland, Bette Davis, and Greta Garbo is in this movie. And yet "Evening" is an awful mess. It's so bad, so inept, so misguided, such a betrayal of the acting talent of its stars, that, after forcing myself to sit through it, I wish I had never seen it. It's that much of a godawful botch and betrayal of its precious material.The production values are very high. The film takes place in two time periods: the 1950s and the present day. The costumes, make-up, and vintage cars are perfect. The lighting, cinematography, and sets are perfect.I blame the writer. The script is incoherent, pointless, and, worse, graceless. There is not one happy moment of verbal magic, or even just a moment where words do any kind of meaningful work whatsoever. What was he thinking? Really? I want to know.I feel a sense of personal betrayal by this movie. This is very much a woman's story (and I'm a woman) and a story of family (and I'm part of a family) and a story of class conflict (something familiar to me) and a story of living large and dying thoughtfully (I've been with the dying as they were working out the complicated narratives of their lives.) All these themes were handled so hamhandedly by the writer I just want to scream.Hugh Dancy, as Buddy, a badly behaved rich boy, somehow manages to rise above the wreckage, and deliver the film's one coherent character, and the one character who manages to arouse some emotion in the viewer. Toni Collette never makes a wrong move, but she's given nothing by the writer. Clare Danes comes off badly.I recommend that you *not* see this movie. Rewatch almost anything else, from "Beaches" to "Terms of Endearment" to "Sliding Doors" to "Letter from an Unknown Woman."