Tagline: Her greatest secret was her greatest gift.
Evening unites a stellar cast, and is based on the beloved novel by Susan Minot and adapted for the screen by Ms. Minot and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham (The Hours), under the direction of Lajos Koltai (Fateless), who was previously an Academy Award nominated cinematographer.
Evening is a deeply emotional film that illuminates the timeless love which binds mother and daughter – seen through the prism of one mother’s life as it crests with optimism, navigates a turning point, and ebbs to its close. Two pairs of real-life mothers and daughters – Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson, and Meryl Streep and Mamie Gummer – portray, respectively, a mother and her daughter and the mother’s best friend at different stages in life. Overcome by the power of memory, Ann Lord (Ms. Redgrave) reveals a long-held secret to her concerned daughters; Constance (Ms. Richardson), a content wife and mother, and Nina (Toni Collette), a restless single woman. Both are bedside when Ann calls out for the man she loved more than any other.
But who is this “Harris,” wonder her daughters, and what is he to our mother? While Constance and Nina try to take stock of Ann’s life and their own lives, their mother is tended to by a night nurse (Eileen Atkins) as she journeys in her mind back to a summer weekend some fifty years ago, when she was Ann Grant (Claire Danes)…
…a young woman who has come from New York City to be maid of honor at the high-society Newport wedding of her dearest friend from college, Lila Wittenborn (Ms. Gummer). The brideto-be is jittery, and turns to her maid of honor rather than her own mother (Glenn Close) for support. Ann stays close to her friend, yet is even closer to Lila’s irrepressible brother Buddy (Hugh Dancy). Unexpected feelings surge forth once Ann meets wedding guest Harris Arden (Patrick Wilson), a lifelong friend and intimate of the Wittenborn family. Ann’s love for Harris will change her life, and those of her daughters, forever.
Evening is a 2007 American drama film directed by Lajos Koltai. The screenplay by Susan Minot and Michael Cunningham is based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot. The film is markedly different from the book, which was much darker and nihlistic. Whereas the film presents a love story between Harris and Ann, the book portrayed Harris as a callous womanizer with whom Ann became obsessed.
A significant portion of the book is dedicated to telling the stories of Ann’s three doomed marriages, each of which failed, in part, because of Ann’s destructive infatuation with the absent Harris. Harris himself is presented as an enigmatic and unsympathetic character who carries on multiple affairs during the course of the wedding night, intent on returning home to marry his fiancee. The film grossed $12,406,646 in the US and $478,928 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $12,885,574.
About the Production
In writing her novel Evening, author and screenwriter Susan Minot had hoped that “anyone following the woman’s story would think about what’s important in their own lives, what they cared about the most, and how they would want to live their own lives moving forward.”
Like so many readers of the beloved best-seller, producer Jeffrey Sharp’s affinity for the novel was at once highly personal and universal. He remarks, “The novel explores a woman’s look back at her life while her children sit at her bedside, learning more about secrets from their mother’s past. When you watch a parent or a loved one nearing life’s end, they are going to a place that their children oftentimes are unable to comprehend.
For the children, there is a strong desire to go to that place with the parent and to try and understand what’s happening with this loved one. But you probably can’t; it’s a whole lifetime, and you have to realize that you’re only one component of that lifetime.”
Over the course of a year, with Minot’s help, Sharp was able to acquire the film rights to the book, which had been previously optioned. He notes, “Also with Susan’s help, I reconceived Evening as an independent feature.” Several drafts of the screenplay followed.
While working in 2003 with another novelist and screenwriter, Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham, on the latter’s A Home at the End of the World, Sharp sensed that Cunningham would respond to Evening. The producer comments, “I shared Evening with Michael. He immediately read it and felt strongly that it was something he would like to work on adapting for the screen.”
As it did with Sharp, the book resonated deeply for Cunningham. He reflects, “It was a story about a mother at the end of her life looking back and wondering if she made mistakes. It came along at a time when my own mother was very ill, which made it feel like providence. “Susan is a writer I admire enormously. I loved the book, but I knew right away that we were going to have to make major changes in order to turn the novel into a film. There were dozens of characters in the novel, all well drawn, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to include them all. Before I committed to the project, I called Susan and told her how much I loved the book and how honored I was to be asked to work on the screenplay. I told her that I’d have to make considerable changes, and said, ‘If that’s not okay with you, tell me now, and I won’t do it, because my first loyalty is always to the novelist!’
Minot remembers, “I told Michael, ‘Whatever it takes for you to get into the story, do it.’ He was able to retain the structure of the book as well as its themes, while also putting some of his own style into the script.”
With a new draft in hand, the filmmakers decided to have a staged reading, relying on casting directors Hopkins, Crowley, Barden to help cast it. The lead actress, as it turns out, would be secured then and there. Sharp remembers, “Claire Danes read Ann Grant, and it was just a wonderful experience. We felt we had something.”
So too did an executive from Focus Features, who was at the reading. Sharp says, “We agreed that Evening was of the caliber of material that is consistent with Focus’ vision for the stories and independent films that they bring to audiences worldwide.” With Focus joining the project as a partner, and casting continuing, the next step was to find a director.
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
Evening (2007)
Directed by: Lajos Koltai
Starring: Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Natasha Richardson, Dame Eileen Atkins, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, Mamie Gummer
Screenplay by: Michael Cunningham, Susan Minot
Production Design by: Caroline Hanania
Cinematography by: Gyula Pados
Film Editing by: Allyson C. Johnson
Costume Design by: Michelle Matland, Ann Roth
Set Decoration by: Catherine Davis
Art Direction by: Jordan Jacobs
Music by: Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some thematic elements, sexual material, a brief accident scene and language.
Distributed by: Focus Features
Release Date: June 22, 2007
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