Starting Out in the Evening
Starting Out in the Evening stars Frank Langella who has made no attempt to age gracefully since drawing first blood as a the lead in 1979’s Dracula. However the jowly character of his new millennium face is perfect for his portrayal of Leonard Schiller a retired New York English professor with a bad heart and author of 4 published novels that never got read much. The completion of his current tome proceeds at a snails pace not only because of creative juices drying up but distractions like his daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor) with relationship issues and a chiming biological clock. Then one day Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose) a shiny happy researcher working on a degree enters his life and he really gets thrown off his game. She turns out to be his biggest and probably only fan who feels that once her thesis is published the world will see renaissance of Schiller appreciation. The ongoing debate between the two is engaging as she tries to break through his guarded persona but things get a little creepy when their relationship briefly gets romantic. Starting Out in the Evening starts out even but like its protagonist has a hard time coming up with a satisfactory ending.