Starting Out in the Evening

Leonard Schiller was once among the novelists New York took seriously. His books are out of print, he has been working for ten years on a novel he cannot finish, and his health is not good. A graduate student named Heather Wolfe asks to interview him for a thesis on his first two books. Schiller refuses at first. She does not give up and manages to get into the flat. The film's second line is Schiller's daughter Ariel; she has reached forty, she wants a child, and there is a great deal unsaid between her and her father. Heather's arrival unsettles them both. Andrew Wagner's film comes from Brian Morton's novel; it neither exalts the literary world nor mocks it, it only shows what being forgotten is like. Frank Langella plays Schiller in what is counted among the most praised performances of his career. Lauren Ambrose and Lili Taylor are in the cast.