Customer Reviews

That Evening Sun [Night Cover] [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was very fortunate to watch "That Evening Sun" on the big screen in Los Angeles. It's cinematography and locations are visually stunning and apropos for the story. Of course, Mr. Holbrook is magnificent and perfectly cast for the lead role.

What makes this film excellent IMHO is its modest, understated approach. Sure, it's a drama, but at no point does it get "dramatic" or overtly poignant. Rather than force feed his viewers with evocative music and gratuitous camera moves/angles, director Scott Teems trusts that viewers are able to sense emotional subtlety and subtext.

I'm excited to hear Teems' commentary and watch the special features!

THAT EVENING SUN is one of those marvelous "little" pictures that usually gets lost in the shuffle because it's too little. On the other hand, if one is lucky enough to catch it, the film stays with them forever.

Hal Holbrook, in what is perhaps the finest performance of his stellar career, plays Abner Meecham, a crusty old coot who escapes from his retirement home and returns to his farm, only to discover that his adult son (Walton Goggins) has "sold" it to a family that the octogenarian considers to be `white trash".

Meecham, however, is a proud, stubborn man, so he moves into the sharecropper's cabin across from the main house, buys a barking dog for company and lays "siege" to the intruders. It is just a matter of time before events turn very ugly.

Adapted to the screen by director Scott Teems from a short story by William Gay, THAT EVENING SUN is filled with well-defined characters of varying shades of gray. Meecham may, indeed, be the hero of the piece, but he is definitely a flawed hero, just as his antagonist (Ray McKinnon), for very brief moments, can evoke our sympathy.

The ending to the story is now what one would expect.

Mia Wasikowska, Carrie Preston, Barry Corbin and Holbrook's late wife, Dixie Carter, are effective in their various roles.


© Michael B. Druxman

We've always respected Harold Rowe Holbrook as an actor---witness Hal's 10 Emmy wins and one Oscar nod---but if there was ever even the teeniest quibble about just how good he is, we have three words: That Evening Sun. And please don't confuse this Imagine Entertainment release with Evening Shade, the TV '90s seires in which Hal co-starred with Burt Reynolds and Marilu Henner.
The film, just out on DVD and Blu-ray, tells a simple and strong story.
A man-strong, resolute-will not let his life disappear into the twilight. He will not let it vanish over the horizon. Instead, he will fight . . .to keep the things he loves, to confront the petty emotional robberies inflicted on the elderly. That Evening Sun is a tale of determination and hope played against the humid background of Southern gothic emotions. It got rave reviews---Variety hailed Hal's performance as a "career-highlight star turn as an irascible octogenarian farmer who will not go gentle into that good night."
And on a touching, bittersweet postscript, the film marks the last screen appearance of Dixie Carter, Holbrook's real life wife, who died shortly after the film was made . . . and to whom the film is dedicated.
Holbrook plays Abner Meecham, an aging Tennessee farmer living in a nursing facility where he has been placed by his son, Paul, who has no sympathy for a father's pride. But Abner has other ideas . . . and escapes to fulfill his dream of returning to his cherished farm and living out his final days in peace.
But when he arrives, he finds that his son has betrayed him a second time.
Paul has sold the lease of the farm to Abner's old adversary, Lonzo Choat. With the battle lines drawn, neither man is willing to give way. Threats are made, events spiral out of control and a startling climax is inevitable.
Based on I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down, a celebrated anthology of short stories from William Gay, and fraught with passion and courage played out against life's departing light, That Evening Sun is a portrait of a man who is not only intent on reclaiming his land, but his own life as well.
Get out the tissues.

At the end of the day, I'm quite surprised that "That Evening Sun" didn't get a bit more attention upon its release than it did. Why? Simply put, it has an absolutely extraordinary performance by the great Hal Holbrook that deserves to be seen and appreciated. Holbrook has been relegated to supporting roles of late, but it's nice to see him front and center again. In this film, he commands attention with every moment of screen time (and he's in practically every scene!). It's hard for me to imagine that if Robert Duvall (or someone of that ilk) had given exactly the same performance that it wouldn't have been talked about for an Oscar nomination. That's, seriously, how impressed I was with Holbrook's strength and star quality.

Holbrook plays a retiree who escapes from the confines of a nursing home to journey back to his family farm. Upon arriving there, however, he discovers that his son (Walton Goggins) has leased the house to a struggling family with a troubled past. Irascible and unlikable, the cantankerous Holbrook is instantly antagonistic to his farm's new inhabitants. Taking up squatter's rights in the property's tenant cabin--Holbrook settles in until a more favorable resolution is forthcoming. As he begins to witness some unsavory moments within the family, he starts to confront some of his own past demons and the life he's led. Helping the family might just be a form of redemption--but extending help when help isn't asked for may not always be a prudent action. Tensions escalate continuously until something has to give.

I wished the film had not taken the easy route in making the new homeowner an outright villain. At first, he seemed pretty reasonable--heck, he let Holbrook stay when he had every right to have the police escort him from the property. In fact, this becomes more of a sticking point the further the film progresses. The story would have ended had they removed Holbrook legally. But the film is still a dramatically successful character study of a man hanging on to independence and dignity while reconciling life's bad decisions and regrets. And it is Holbrook's best work in years--perhaps even a career high point. Not a perfect film, "That Evening Sun" still has power and heart--and I think that over the years, it's a sleeper people will discover and love! KGHarris, 3/11.

Reading others review I will just clarify or explain some misleading details.
1) The son and wife were apparently treaded bad by the old man "Ryan Reynolds" all during his marriage and raising his son.
2) The son was loveingly justified puting the old man in a "healthcare center" because of serious injuries after a fall which was the second time he almost died. So that should have been fair
3) Nobody but the neighbor and "trashy girl" are likeable and they have minor parts
4) The "evil" renter could not throw him off the ranch since he was only renting and apparently since he had no job would never be able to own the farm.
5) The old man was so cantankerous to everyone, including his his son & wife, but did briefly feel bad he would not wait for her to stop trying on a dress to go out AND SHE DIED when he returned.
6) The son tried to convince the old man that in 2 or 3 weeks he could have his nemesis removed and move back onto the farm.
7) Why the old man never told the law or his son that the renter killed his dog and hung him on the porch would have removed the threat to "put him away" for being crazy, so the story teller let his son that the law think he was nuts
8) The girl offered to not run away and help him fix up the shack and he turned that down and would not even leave with her.
9) The old man "apparently-since the ending is totally unfinished" set up an apparent attempted murder charge sending the unlikeable unemployed renter to jail. Even thought he saved the old man when he suffered a stroke while setting up the burned up cabin hoax.
10) This was a great short story made into a great movie but with all the loose ends and non-ending it hurt this 5 star movie to be a 3 or 4 star for me. And to my mind, the old man was more evil than the struggling down trodden failure of a man renter. He might have matured if the Old man had left him alone. SO MAYBE THIS WAS A SNAP-SHOT OF REAL LIFE that made this an award winning movie.

This film was well worth the wait, a bit of a shame about the ending, but well worth watching.

Although I thought the film was flawed in some ways (repetitious flashbacks of Meecham standing behind his wife, etc), the film was an interesting character study. At the beginning, everything was from Meecham's point of view and he was not disclosing all truths. The movie appeared to be the classic story line of family sending an unwitting parent to a nursing home. But all was not as initially perceived: Meecham was withholding past treatment of family and his health.

And then we get the son's point of view; trying to act in his father's best interests, given his father's health and the son's limitations with time pursuing his profession plus his son's paying the bills and his father's past treatment of him.

And, we eventually find Choat has a good side. Everybody in the film shows the positive and negative aspects of their character, albeit to greater/lesser extents. Isn't that the way life generally is?

This stirring indie drama evoked a range of feelings in this viewer & I suspect that it will in others who like indie dramas. On 1 level it's character-driven with exceptional performances from Holbrook and the rest of the main characters.

On another level it's a story of loneliness & sadness, bordering on despair. This level is shared by every main character in the movie & is very impactful. On still a 3rd level it's a story of lost love -- of Meecham's life-long spouse and of his own past living on the property that he struggles to take back from his loathsome tenant, played superbly by Ray McKinnon.

Now some will say that this movie "drags" in parts, and I agree with one important qualification. It seems to me that some of the slower scenes help the more subtle subthemes to emerge & take effect on the viewer.

I hope we'll see a lot more of Scott Teems' work. As the director & co-writer, his work in this film shows great promise. You can find out quite a bit about him & his efforts by watching the excellent Special Features on this Blu-Ray disk.

Very worthwhile, in my opinion.

Great story.wonderful acting! Hal Holbrook
And Mia Wasikowska are great together. Dont miss this
Sleeper, the emotions are amazingly portrayed.
One of Ray McKinnon's best performances,and
A fond farewell to Dixie Carte!

Based on the short story "I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down" by William Gay, "That Evening Sun" presents us with an epic battle of wills between two equally immutable forces fighting over the same piece of land. The property in question is a rundown farm in rural Tennessee owned by Abner Meecham (Hal Holbrooke), an octogenarian who's just walked away from the retirement home his son (Walter Goggins) placed him in after a serious fall a few months back. When Abner gets back to his farm, he is stunned to find that - thanks to a deal brokered by his lawyer son - the place has been signed over to a white-trash, ne'er-do-well by the name of Lonzo Choat (Ray McKinnon), who now lives there with his wife (Carrie Preston) and sixteen-year-old daughter (Mia Wasikowska), with whom Abner establishes an uneasy but generally tender relationship.

Scott Teem's screenplay is multi-faceted and complex in the way it develops its characters. For instance, many of the very same qualities that make Abner so appealing to the audience - his tenacity, his commitment to principle, his uncompromising willingness to call things as he sees them - are also what make him a hard person to deal with for those who are actually a part of his life. This is especially the case with his son, who though he obviously loves his father and wants to do right by him, harbors a lifelong resentment against the old man for his harsh treatment of both himself and his now-deceased mother while he was growing up.

To a somewhat lesser extent, Lonzo is also portrayed in a three-dimensional light. Though he is an alcoholic, a wastrel, and a man prone to acts of violence against both animals and members of his own family, there is a sense that he is genuinely trying to get his life together by earning an honest living and finally being a decent provider for his loved ones.

The movie really seems to understand the tragedy of old age - of feeling as if everything you ever called your own is now being taken away from you and nobody around you seems to care. In fact, many of those people - despite, in some cases, their possible good intentions - are proactively involved in bringing that outcome about. The movie also touches upon that root and highly American value of property ownership, and the willingness to stop at virtually nothing to ensure one's hold on one's land.

"That Evening Sun" is what is called in the trade an "actors' picture," and, indeed, it is the performances that are of primary interest here. Holbrooke has always been a tremendous actor, but here he is positively transcendent as Abner, a crusty old coot who is so much more than just a crusty old coot. Goggins, the brilliant star of "The Shield" and "Justified" and a co-producer of this film, is also excellent as Paul Meecham, a role quite different from the ones in the aforementioned works. And McKinnon, Preston ("True Blood"), and Wasikowska ("Alice in Wonderland," "The Kids are All Right") are all wonderful as well.

The tone of the film is contemplative and muted, and Teems' direction is rich in atmosphere and setting.