Grace. Sophistication. Intelligence. Heart. We should all be so fortunate to be Starting Out In The Evening of our own lives.

| Nov 15, 2019

For all its sturm and drang, there is an elegiac quality about the film, maybe because fewer and fewer people apparently care very much about writing or writers.

| Aug 22, 2017

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 17, 2011

A bravura performance from Frank Langella blended into a lackluster story.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 30, 2008

Awkward and sometimes overly subtle, but compelling performances by a cast of normally supporting actors who make the most of their much deserved chance to carry a film.

| Original Score: B | Jul 19, 2008

Wagner has turned the page on a promising career, and it will be exciting to see what the next chapter brings.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 28, 2008

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 26, 2008

Starting Out in the Evening is thrilling in a way that a movie larded with car chases and explosions can seldom be, because of the way it deals with that basic building block of civilization, the creative process.

| Feb 24, 2008

Criminally overlooked, this is a great movie, about which I could find no complaint or overt flaw except feeling that Taylor (whom I do love) was mostly a distraction. See it if you can.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 16, 2008

Langella's nuanced performance saves the film; the actor has an understated but powerful role, and he takes full advantage.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 8, 2008

Wagner's film is an elegy of sorts for that once-mighty beast known as the New York Writer, a creature that now finds itself increasingly marginalized in a world in which readers are getting scarcer and shelf space for serious fiction is dwindling daily.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 8, 2008

It's Langella's performance that anchors the film.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 7, 2008

By and large, Starting Out in the Evening is smart and considered and grown-up and credibly human filmmaking.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 1, 2008

Just may be the best film of 2007 that you've probably never heard of.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jan 30, 2008

Starting Out in the Evening is just a movie about a dignified old white man who writes novels, slowly, on a typewriter. Clever concept.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 23, 2008

What to do with this light, while it lasts? [Director] Wagner's problem is to find an answer to that question and also to offer some resolution to the conflicts of honesty and compromise the movie portrays.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 18, 2008

A dry, insightful and sensitive drama.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 18, 2008

A strong cast and a literate script make for a refreshingly subtle film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 18, 2008

This is Frank Langella's movie. He's been given a plum of role, and he bites into it with amazing grace and precision.

| Jan 14, 2008

[Frank Langella] is a god of sorts to those who've followed his career for 30 years with an appreciation for subtle, forceful acting, and he's at the top of his game in Starting Out in the Evening.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 11, 2008