Review: Starting Out In The Evening

RECOMMENDED
Frank Langella is the center of this quiet telling of the autumn years of Leonard Schiller, an older, blocked writer who lives in New York, investing a talky adaptation of a novel by Brian Morton, with his substantial presence and gravitas, but also humming with notes of bridling pride and impacted anger. (The character of Schiller seems to be intended as a cross of James Salter, of the parsimonious output, and late Leonard Michaels, of the even-more-sparing output and lifelong randiness.) “Starting Out in The Evening” is the second feature by Andrew Wagner, whose debut, “The Talent Given Us,” was a maniacal gem, a movie that starred his parents and sister as exaggerated versions of themselves, comical yet heartfelt. “Evening,” the last production from the mostly lamentable output of the now-defunct “InDiGent” shot-on-video-for-nothing digital production venture, is hushed by comparison. Lauren Ambrose is the saucer-eyed graduate student who brings her youth, pale skin and bright red hair into his cloacal, book-lined life, and the opportunities for mutual exploitation are explored with the right emotional notes, if perhaps a little too much dialogue that’s descriptive rather than plaintive. (This cut, rated PG-13, surely now lacks the most startling moment in the version shown at Sundance 2007, which involved Langella and full-frontal nudity.) With Lili Taylor and Adrian Lester. 109m. (Ray Pride)