Review of Starting Out in the Evening (2007) by Brian R — 19 Dec 2007

Frank Langella saves this movie from Lifetime movie of the week status. There are several problems with this film, but the most glaring one is that it is as cautious and reserved with its filmic style and narrative as Schiller is in his writing.

There's a fine line between understated simplicity and total blandness, and this film occasionally crosses that line, especially when the film leaves Schiller to explore his daughter (Lili Taylor) and her relationships.

I guess thematically the scenes with her and her boyfriends are a nice way of externalizing many of the key themes that run throughout the film: she, like the characters in Schiller's books, must learn to act in her self-interest and not fall into the easy subordinate role expected of her.

But these scenes, although never blatantly unauthentic, are never all that interesting either. What's really good here is Frank Langella as Leonard Schiller, a character who, at first, seems to embody the dignified elderly intellectual we are so used to respecting in other films.

But the way the film unwraps our expectations of him, does not let him give his old age as an excuse for no longer living, and lets him live as a man of complex desires and emotions rarely seen in movies, is kind of amazing.

I don't think the film ever really latches onto an interesting enough narrative track to fully exploit this potential though. Still, Schiller is a wonderful character and also conveys the film's profound and realistic portrait of writing, but while he's definitely given space to develop, the film never really catches up to Langella's performance in any other area.

Many have rightly heralded this film for its sophistication and good taste, but it always seemed to be playing too safe for me. This film might have been better if it had learned the lesson of its main character and abandoned its securities, trashed the easy parallel storyline with Lili Taylor, and elevated its narrative intensity.