EVENING
In Theatres:	June 29, 2007
On DVD:	TBA
Reviewed by:	Louis B.
Official website:	www.focusfeatures.com/evening
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There are good reasons why the sacchrine romantic opus Evening is being released in the macho heat of summer.

I can sum it up in two words.

The Notebook.

Back in 2004 the equally nostagic, sentimental romance earned a whopping $82 million appealing to women who were desperate for something that didn’t have explosions, guns, car chases and superheroes in tights and capes.

The Notebook went on to gross even more on DVD.

Evening is very much a clone of The Notebook.

In the present we have someone on their deathbed remembering a defining moment and true love.

In this case it is Anna Grant (Vanessa Redgrave) who drifts in and out of consciousness talking lovingly about a man named Harris Arden (Patrick Wilson).

Anna’s two adult daughters Nina (Toni Collette) and Constance (Natasha Richardson) have no idea who she means.

It certainly isn’t either of Anna’s husbands, the men who fathered them.

As Anna talks, images of that time in the 1950s flash before her.

In that era Claire Danes plays the free spirited lounge singer Anna was.

She was attending the wedding of her best friend, the wealthy socialite Lila Wittenborn (Mamie Gummer).

Oh wow, Mamie is Meryl Streep’s daughter and there’s no missing the resemblance.

Meryl plays Lila in a 10-minute scene near the end of the film with Redgrave.

Boy talk about heavyweights sharing the screen.

Glenn Close plays Lila’s mother but she exists in a time period separate from Redgrave and Streep.

But back to the really convoluted plot.

Lila is marrying the man of her parents’ choice but she is not-so-secretly in love with Harris.

Lila’s brother Buddy (Hugh Dancy) who is smitten with Anna and alcohol begs Anna to stop the wedding so Lila can have Harris but, quicker than you can say major conflict of interest, Harris falls for Anna big time and she sense stirrings for him.

You have to wait until the final moments of the movie to find out what happened back in 1950 that impacted so strongly on so many lives and ruined the friendship of Anna and Lila.

If that weren’t enough angst for one film Constance and Nina have secrets of their own so the present is fraught with pain as well.

Evening is pure, unadultrated melodrama but it’s served up with class given its all-star cast.

It feels like one of those TV mini series based on a romantic novel and that’s probably what it should have been given just how dense Susan Minot’s novel is.

Still as a mature chick flick, it’s in a league of its own this year.