In an age where reality TV and celebrity gossip count as “culture,” it’s hard to imagine a quiet, plodding movie like Starting out in the Evening ever reaching the mainstream. No doubt references to Norman Mailer and Saul Bellow will be lost on the MTV generation (they were writers or something, right?). But then again, Andrew Wagner’s second feature, unlike the current Hollywood fare, aims to capture the attention of a different audience – a diminishing generation of literature lovers and sweater-vest wearers who balk at the superficial “whatever sells” notion of pop culture.

The film, adapted from Brian Morton’s novel of the same name by Wagner and Fred Parnes, offers a detailed look into lives of three very different characters who inhabit a world where everything is measured against a ticking clock. Aging novelist Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella) is resigned to spending the rest of his days plucking away at a typewriter in an attempt to finish his final book – a task ten years in the making. But, his monotonous lifestyle is thrown off course by the introduction of Rachel Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose), an ambitious, go-getter grad student intent on writing her thesis on the fading author.
Initially against the idea (he has no time to dwell on the past, what with his unfinished novel and all), Leonard eventually gives into Rachel’s flattering persistence. Full of grand thoughts, Rachel declares she is going to do for Leonard what Malcolm Cowley did for Faulkner; she will reintroduce his novels to the world. Rachel’s self-assurance would border on naivety, but there is little connotation of innocence in her actions. She knows what she wants, and she goes after it with a blatant disregard for others.

Rachel is the by-product of old-time aesthetic appreciation and more recent “do whatever it takes” ideologies. She wants to champion Leonard’s work, but she also wants to be successful in a world that is no longer interested in the novels of a burnt-out writer with no mass appeal. These two conflicting desires combine to make an annoyingly impulsive, and somewhat hypocritical, character. She’s hard to like, but not entirely impossible to sympathize with.

Leonard, on the other hand, is a traditional, gentlemanly intellectual through and through. He breaks for teatime, refers to women as ladies, and frequently attends academic lectures and literary soirées. He’s unsure what to make of the hybrid he perceives in Rachel, and yet despite himself, finds he’s drawn to her fiery intensity.

As the film progresses, the two are pulled into an indefinable relationship of mutual admiration, possible attraction, and newly awakened desire. There are moments of tender, albeit odd, affection between Rachel and Leonard despite, or perhaps in spite, of the 40-year-plus age difference. It’s unclear what exactly Rachel is looking for when she playfully smears honey over Leonard’s face or when she invites him into her bed just to “be near him.” She seems to be confusing admiration for a kindred spirit with love or something equally sensual. The way she toys with flirtation can at times seems cruel, but perhaps it’s just her inexperience leaking through her glossy self-confidence.