Evening

Evening was incredibly disappointing. It was another addition to the ongoing chick flick series I've been watching with Annie, but it was so subpar. I thought it could deliver some cheese, some embarrassment, and a few laughs, if only because it had SO many chick flick regulars: Vanessa Redgrave, Toni Collette, Natasha Richardson, Glenn Close, fucking MERYL STREEP, Hugh Dancy (from The Jane Austen Book Club! So cute!), Paul Wilson (ok, he's not necessarily a regular yet, but "Angels in America" was so gay it was a chick flick by default, right?) ...

Nope. Michael Cunningham (The Hours) was also involved, and even that didn't help. Claire Danes was in it, unfortunately, and Annie and I despise her both as an actress and on principle, because we are both fiercely loyal to Mary Louise-Parker and think Claire Danes is a homewrecker.

So, these are my problems with Evening, in order of importance:

1. Bastards stole the last scene from The Way We Were without adding anything interesting or unusual to it, or even bothering to make it an homage or commentary.

2. The flashback story that you're supposed to get into was flimsy and stupid and was never adequately related to the daughters, so it's really implausible that the daughters reconciliation was in any way connected to the flashback story.

3. Meryl Streep was only in the LAST TEN MINUTES. She was amazing, though, as usual.

4. Eileen Atkins was wasted, too.

5. The whole story seemed like it was gleaned from "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," and translated from page to screen with as much incoherent stream-of-consciousness plotting. Hmph.