Lack of good storyline.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

That Evening Sun begins as many geezer-escapes-from-nursing-home movies, with 80-year old Abner Meecham (Hal Holbrook) packing his bag and heading back to his old farm. Once there, he finds that his lawyer son has rented the place, inevitably, to a family he loathes and holds in low regard, the Choats. Even though the Choats have legal right to be there (a valid lease), Abner tries to run them off, and, failing that, he stays on in a worker's shack on the property to harass them. He does sort of befriend the teen Choat daughter, and actually saves her and her mother from a beating with a garden hose by papa Choat.Holbrook is good, as always, but Abner is a nasty old cuss who seems to thrive on being mean. In the course of the movie, we learn that not only is Abner not entirely a good guy, but Choat is not entirely a bad guy.The problems here are several: Abner is relentlessly mean and we cannot grow to like him, his scenes with teen Pamela Choat are few and brief and the relationship goes nowhere, Dixie Carter's appearances in flashbacks as Abner's dead wife afford her no lines, and Abner's employing a noisy dog to irritate Choat must end in the animals death. For some reason, viewers are more outraged by the death of a dog than by that of humans, and this scene is played directly to that idiosyncrasy.The 'story' ends with Abner no better off than at the start, the Choats no better off - in other words it was all for naught. No resolution, no real story, irritating characters, missed opportunities, very bad ending. One to miss.

This story of Abner Meecham, an 80-something man who walks out of his retirement home to return to his old farm, only to find other people living there, was to me more of a thriller than most movies tagged as that. The conflicts that develop between Meecham and the farm-dweller Choats (husband, wife, and teenage daughter) kept me in a state of tension throughout most of the movie.You think that this is going to be a story about Abner, a lovable curmudgeon who fights the good fight to reclaim his property from the unlikable Lonzo Choat. But things don't quite go in that direction. For one thing Meecham's son Paul, a lawyer with power of attorney, has given the Choats a 90 day lease with an option to buy, so the Choats have legal right to be on the land. But Meecham is not about to let that stand. Choat and Meecham have many more shades of gray in their personalities than good versus bad. We see a dark side of Choat in a beating he deals his daughter with a garden hose (which is truly a horrible scene), but as he gently coils the hose for storage the next day we see regret and self loathing in his every movement. Meecham doesn't start the negotiations off well by calling Choat white trash and saying that he is a lazy good-for-nothing. But Choat's wife Ludie lands a pretty good blow on Meecham when she asks him if it doesn't get tired being such a bitter, lonely old man. The back-and-forth ever-escalating battle that embroils the Choats, Meecham, and Paul, exposes their personalities in a way that kept my interest.I think the basic theme touched on is knowing when to give up. Is it realistic for Meecham to think he can resume his life alone on the farm? Does Choat really have a chance of making a go of it on the farm? Should Paul give in to his father's demands, or should Meecham listen to Paul's reasoned arguments? The film ultimately resolves these questions, but does not answer them.The filming in rural Tennessee adds a touch of realism to the proceedings.Holbrook, at age 84, continues to amaze. I can't think of any other actor his age who could pull this off--he is on screen for most of the scenes. I found the interview with him on the DVD well worth watching.

What a film.! Anyone who has experienced elderly members of the family being stubborn, or old fashioned without obvious reason, then this film will ring true.Although members of our family/community age, and reach the final stages of their life does not make them an outcast, it does not make them less worthy of ourselves.This film make the valid point that, yes, life does indeed go on, but at the same time, memories still live too, and if someone is still breathing the free air we all breath today, then they are still entitled to live out their life, and spend their living days how they see fit.Without spoiling this film, or should I say without giving out any spoilers, basically, if you have come to that stage in your life where you have had to make the very difficult decision to put your mother, or father in a care home, watch this film.! Although your father, or mother maybe aging, and to you, look somewhat out of control, they are now, you should be listening to them more carefully, even muffled speech, of rambled they may sound, listen to them, memories live on.This film is all about pride, being faithful to ones past, mistakes, and choices. One may make path to their own siblings which gives them the job of good fortune, but at the same time, they question you when your old, and in many peoples eyes "Past it". This film opens the eyes of the unforgiving.!I cried watching this film, and Im 40 years young. Maybe I related to this film more than most, but at the same time, I had to write about this film, and how it impacted myself alone.Enjoy, its a great piece of film making, and Hal, is at his best in this. We all remember him from his earlier pieces, usually in a courtroom.

I had the privilege of seeing That Evening Sun last night at the Atlanta Film Festival. Scott Teems, Terrence Berry, Laura Smith, Ray McKinnon, Walton Goggins, and Larsen Jay were all in attendance and conducted an excellent Q&A afterwords. There's so much to this film, so I'll start with the acting and go from there. The movie was so perfectly cast, from Hal Holbrook to Ray McKinnon all the way down to Barlow Jacobs the cab driver - they all were so authentic and believable. There was a lot of very good dialog, but I felt in the moments of quiet grief, contemplation, and observation there was so much more said about the characters. The story itself was very simple - it had no effect on the world outside of the few characters involved - but again it made the whole situation believable and really struck home with a lot of audience members. The movie is very smart - it doesn't hit you over the head with actors stating "I feel remorse, I feel sad, I feel angry." You get to watch their actions in the present reveal their character and past. Location was perfectly southern, shot just outside of Knoxville on an old farm, complete with the tenant house seen (although the Q&A explained the actual tenant house was disassembled and rebuilt closer to the main house). There is something about truly southern movies that have a feel like no other with a landscape and sound you can't find in Canada, New Zealand, or LA. The music, done by Michael Penn and the Drive-By Truckers, completed the whole picture with a quiet southern flavor. Scott Teems explained in the Q&A that he wanted a lot of quiet time for the audience to absorb the story and the location. The music was present, but didn't drive scenes. All in all, this is one of the best independent films I've seen in recent years, and is instantly one of my favorite films of all time. Please go see this film, you will not regret the time spent!