Starting Out In the Evening isn't a very good movie, but Frank Langella is very good in it. It's almost as if he is acting in a different film from everyone else: his portrayal of the once-famous, aging author is nuanced and complex even has a touch of grandeur. The movie is insistently slow but he is worth watching.
The rest of the movie is a pile of lumpy clichés, overwritten dialogue wasted on underdeveloped characters: un-appreciated self-sacrificing biological-clock-ticking daughter (Lili Taylor) sleeping with the wrong guys and yearning for baby before it's too late; self-indulgent fatuous-elitist editor (Adrian Lester) who uses the daughter without respecting her until he is redeemed, apparently, by a single afternoon of menial good deeds; red-haired hot-intellectual grad-student vixen (Lauren Ambrose) who uses her sex appeal to manipulate the author for her own advancement. And when the ailing Langella is shown stretched out silently in bed, unfortunately I could not help but think, "There Lies Dracula, a washed-up New York writer."
The rest of the movie is a pile of lumpy clichés, overwritten dialogue wasted on underdeveloped characters: un-appreciated self-sacrificing biological-clock-ticking daughter (Lili Taylor) sleeping with the wrong guys and yearning for baby before it's too late; self-indulgent fatuous-elitist editor (Adrian Lester) who uses the daughter without respecting her until he is redeemed, apparently, by a single afternoon of menial good deeds; red-haired hot-intellectual grad-student vixen (Lauren Ambrose) who uses her sex appeal to manipulate the author for her own advancement. And when the ailing Langella is shown stretched out silently in bed, unfortunately I could not help but think, "There Lies Dracula, a washed-up New York writer."