Starting Out in the Evening (2007)

      Sophomore director Andrew Wagner's "Starting Out in the Evening" (based on the Brian Morton novel) begins and ends with essentially the same shot--aging New York author Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella) stares into space over his pointedly silent typewriter, an archetype of the writer in crisis. After a long pause, he begins pecking out a few lines. At the beginning of the film, his halting start has the feel of desperation; at the end, there's a note of hope. The connection between these two points is not a straight line but a winding road, which would be fine if the winding felt more like a confidently led expedition rather than a hesitant groping for the right direction.
      If anyone's to blame for the uncertain tone of "Starting Out" it's not Langella. Leonard is something of a dinosaur, a former professor and formerly important author whose best work came decades ago and is no longer in print, a man so decorous and formal he wears a pressed shirt and tie even when he's home alone. Langella invests him with a quiet, almost defensive dignity that he wears as surely as his tie, a reservedness so essential to his self that any attempt to broach it seems boorish, even cruel.
      As he struggles to finish his latest novel, he's approached by Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose), a fiercely intelligent and ambitious grad student who wants to make Leonard the subject of her Master's thesis and introduce him to a new generation of readers. As Heather probes the reticent Leonard for clues to the mind that lies behind the books she genuinely loves, they begin a hesitant May-December relationship centered on their kindred intellects but trembling on the border of physicality.
      "Starting Out" avoids most of the pitfalls into which such a story could fall in less talented hands. The young grad student does not miraculously resuscitate the gruff old writer's faded career with her moxie and youthful joie de vivre; the gruff old writer does not mentor the raw but talented newcomer with nuggets of his hard-earned wisdom. The film's maturity and willingness to treat the love of books as something important and worthy of serious discussion make it exactly the sort of movie I want to love. But despite some excellent acting, the film as a whole just does not ring true. A subplot with Leonard's childless, 40-something daughter Ariel (ably played by the always-excellent Lili Taylor) adds little to the story other than a second Schiller who feels the clock ticking on her ability to create, and too often Leonard and Heather speak and act in ways which do not seem to jibe with their characters as we've been led to understand them.
      At one point Leonard explains his creative process by saying that he simply follows his characters around for awhile until they do something interesting. If they don't, then he's forced to give up on them and start over. "Starting Out" plays as if that's exactly what Andrew Wagner is doing--following his talented actors around a bit, to find out if they'll do something interesting. I read in "Variety" that "Starting Out in the Evening" was shot on location in only eighteen days, leaving little time for much wandering. Perhaps given more time, or more explicit (or ruthless) direction, they could have pulled it off even better than they did.