Evening, the movie

Evening, is a new movie with an outstanding cast of women: Vanessa Redgrave, Claire Danes,Meryl Streep, Natashia Richardson, Glenn Close, etc. etc. From a Susan Minot novel -- frankly I don't know if the novel is the same name or not. Frankly I don't care. This proved to me once again, although I need no proof, why I don't read best sellers by American writers ... for the most part. What a waste of wonderful talent! The story itself was a kind of cliche, certainly the theme that on our deathbeds we remember, with the pain of loss, our first love ... poppycock. The movie was set in a very sumptous Newport, R.I. summer "cottage". All in the '30s, I guess, or '40s.

Every character was a stereotype -- what a waste of good actresses! -- the setting was a sterotype too. The cutting from present to memory worked okay. The only charming part was the unexplained appearance of the night nurse a couple of times in a wonderful sparkling evening gown. Besides the sheer sentimenatlity of it all the casting of Vanessa Redgrave as the dying woman was ridiculous -- she looks 85 without makeup [or with paled down makeup] And yet she had two daughters who were in their late 30s or early 40s. No! Can't believe it. It was all so much marshmallow and proves to me that not only do I miss almost nothing by not having a TV, I miss almost nothing by selectively going almost exclusively to non-American movies or non-Hollywood type ones. I WILL go see Michael Moore's SICKO in the very near future ... he'll never be establishment and always have a point of view that is not sentimental.