Evening
Focus Features | Release Date: June 29, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
45
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
18
Negative:
6
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
63
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Susan Minot’s resplendent novel of a dying woman…stumbles on its way to the screen. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
What a cast but what a disappointment. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin Chang
Individual moments are not without their felicitous touches -- mainly due to the cast, which is rich to the point of improbability. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
The film is based on a novel by Susan Minot--one of those books where the author doesn't deign to put dialogue in quotation marks for fear of dispelling the dreamlike mood. It works on paper, but Minot, who shares credit for the adaptation with fellow novelist Michael Cunningham, doesn't understand that screenwriting is the art of taking away. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid Denby
This is one of the rare movies that are too sensitive for their own good. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The strength of the screenplay and acting provide a satisfying, although not overwhelming, two hours of romance, drama, and tragedy. Read full review
50
Village VoiceElla Taylor
Parked uneasily between sensitive indie and studio chick-flick, Lajos Koltai's Evening makes star-studded hash of Susan Minot's beautifully written, if emotionally constricted, novel. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Evening feels like one of those devil's-candy productions that aim to bring artistry to a large audience, specifically a large audience of adult women who don't often go to the movies. Even considering it in that light, I found it miscalculated and overcooked. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneJessica Reaves
The film, like the book, is clear-eyed without being clinical, reflective but never maudlin. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The performances, especially by Hugh Dancy as a sexually confused rich kid, are overwrought, and the script, which Michael Cunningham ("The Hours") wrote in collaboration with Minot, is slack. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
High-grade cheese, the sort of highly pitched melodrama that in the 1950s would have been the stuff of a lurid, lavishly staged Douglas Sirk picture. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Evening is so distanced from the emotions of the story that it never breathes on its own. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
For all of its class-act bona fides, Evening lurches between the morose and the sentimental, with occasional incursions into the absurd. Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Evening proves that there are such things as mistakes, by featuring two hours of bad choices and half-executed ideas. Read full review
30
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Doesn’t seem as if it would translate easily to the big screen. It hasn't. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Evening is a case study in how a subtly evocative book can elude the most well-intentioned filmmakers and some of our finest actors. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle Smith
Vanessa Redgrave spends Evening dying, and so does Evening. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Redgrave still manages to inspire awe, yet a poetically prosaic moment like the one in which she goes chasing after a butterfly is enough to throw a net over the whole thing. Read full review
67
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
It's like a Harlequin romance trying to pass itself off as something deeper and more profound. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Whatever Evening is saying about life, death, and guilt isn't terribly new or interesting. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
It paints its world in pastels, but the subject cries out for vivid colors. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderStaff (not credited)
Despite the show-offy cast, it took me a while to warm to these people and their self-consciously idyllic settings--as well as to the slick direction of former cinematographer Lajos Koltai--but I was eventually won over. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
There are few things more depressing than a weeper that doesn't make you weep. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
It resonates with gleaming ferocity as it unspools a story of regret, longing and resolution in two generations of women. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Evening might be the most shocking waste of natural resources since the despoiling of the Amazon rain forest. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
The uneven filmmaking renders Minot's ideas impossibly trite. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The constant shifting between today and years ago is, in and of itself, powerful. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The characters, full of blue-blood archness and angst, are partial to self-conscious speechifying. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Rather than concentrate on Ann's disappointed infatuation and providing a satisfactory reason for its failure, Minot and, one suspects, Cunningham in particular, chose to flesh out the character of Buddy. Read full review
50
Film ThreatStina Chyn
Evening”has so much going for it. A great cast, amazing visuals, and solid directing throughout. So why did I leave the film saying aloud to the parking lot, "I didn't like it." Read full review
30
TimeRichard Schickel
Rarely have so many gifted women labored so tastefully to bring forth such a wee, lockjawed mouse. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
For all the creaminess of the sets and costumes, every character talks as if she is still made out of written words, not flesh, and each woman's struggles feel about as important as a tea dance. Read full review
50
PremiereKarl Rozemeyer
A mistake was made: Evening is a book that would have been best left on the page. Read full review
More From This Movie

45 Critic Reviews

4.9 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL