Starting Out In The Evening
Director Andrew Wagner brings us ‘Starting Out In The Evening’, a heavy hearted meditation on art, love, ageism and parenthood. The film stars Frank Langella as Leonard Schiller, an aging novelist and professor, Six Feet Under’s Lauren Ambrose as bright eyed grad student Heather Wolfe , and Lili Taylor as the professor’s middle aged daughter, Ariel.
When Leornard and Heather first meet, it is in a rather unassuming diner in a city that looks much like yours and mine. Ambrose, a woman who dreams of being like “Joni Mitchell, or Joan of Arc”, shines opposite Langella as she sings the praises of his past literary works and informs him that she is very interested in doing her master thesis on his books. While he seems genuinely flattered, he informs her that participating in such a project would detract him from his current novel which he feels an urgency to complete. This urgency becomes a reoccurring theme when it comes to the aging professor, who, at seventy years old, feels his days ticking away.
But despite the professor’s insistence on not being able to help the young grad student, Heather’s ambition is simply undeniable as she manages to nudge herself into his life, finally getting him to agree to her proposition.
Heather’s admiration for Professor Schiller seems to transcend his scholastic achievements, however, and soon their work relationship blooms into something much more substantial.
Leonard’s relationship with Heather is juxtaposed with his involvement in the life of his daughter, Ariel. Ariel’s love for her father is very apparent and the two spend time together by browsing bookstores and attending literary readings. The two seem very comfortable with each other, though it is obvious from early on that there are, in fact, waves of turbulence churning just below the surface. Like most fathers, Leonard’s choice for Ariel’s love interest does not exactly match her own, and we spend a good deal of the film exploring her relationships with Victor, a successful lawyer, and Casey, a bohemian artist with whom Ariel has had a troubled past with.
Starting Out In The Evening is a film that will make literary enthusiast giddy as multiple references to great authors of the past are thrown out continuously. To say that this film is consciously pretentious though would be selling it short and limiting its depth. What we have with Starting Out is a mature film that, in my opinion, succeeds in it’s desire to show the frailty of age, the importance of family, and the toll that a life without risks can have on your soul.
To be sure, Starting Out is not a perfect film, but it’s intentions are at once pure without seeming forced. Perhaps it’s only fault can be that it seems to not take the risk the characters speak of so passionately. The wings never seem to completely soar, instead hovering just slightly above the ground throughout most of the film. It does, however, show moments of true honesty, and it is this type of vulnerability that makes films like this, though flawed, absolutely worth every minute.
Starting Out In The Evening is in theaters now.
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