a SIFF 2009 review
That Evening Sun a Timeless Melodrama
Abner Meecham (Hal Holbrook) has escaped the retirement home his lawyer son Paul (Walton Goggins) had left him in and returns to his family farm only to discover Lonzo Choat (Ray McKinnon) and his family are living there. More than that, apparently Paul has given them an option to buy the place outright, and that’s a thing the cranky 80-year-old former farmer just won’t stand for.
Hal Holbrook in Freestyle Releasing's That Evening Sun
Forced to live in the rundown tenant shack sitting next to the main house, Abner plots and schemes devising a plan that will hopefully lead to the Choat family’s eviction. But Lonzo is every bit as stubborn as he is, this battle of wills can only inevitably lead to tragedy unless cooler heads and calmer hearts can somehow intervene and prevail.
I really liked That Evening Sun when I first saw it back during this past summer’s Seattle International Film Festival. Based on a short story by William Gay, writer and director Scott Teems has crafted a Southern gothic drama that plays a bit like a country-fried cousin to Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino. Abner Meecham is an angry and not altogether nice individual, and while he’s nowhere near as racist as Walt Kowalski he’s still not the type of man you’d likely sit down and have a polite cup of coffee with, either.
Like that film, it is a relationship with a troubled teenager (Lonzo’s daughter Pamela, played by soon-to-be Alice and Wonderland megastar Mia Wasikowska) that ultimately starts to redeem Abner and force him to put both his life and his current actions into perspective. They are the story’s heart and soul, the two of them sharing brief, emotionally fractured scenes with one another speaking to larger truths neither wants to deal with.
Unlike Gran Torino, however, That Evening Sun goes in a mostly unexpected direction. While people change and lessons are learned, they aren’t done so soon enough to stave off a startling form of tragedy that, while not particularly lethal, packs an emotional wallop that’s nearly as devastating. The last scenes evoke a hollow emptiness that smacked me upside the head, and even if hope isn’t gone it certainly isn’t as knocking at the door with energetic excitement.
As good as the movie is I’m not going to lie and say it is entirely perfect. While Holbrook is very, very good as Meecham I can’t help but think he’s getting Oscar buzz more because he’s a legendary Hollywood character actor of a certain age then because he’s given a truly transcendent performance. Also, Teems lets the pace lull a time or two, especially during the midsection, showing his hand far too early for the climax to both devastate and elevate like it maybe would have had he played things a bit closer to the vest.
On the flipside, the film is lovingly photographed by Rodney Taylor (Save Me), his camerawork providing a loving intimacy that’s heartfelt and genuine. I was also quite taken with composer Michael Penn’s (Sunshine Cleaning) restrained and subdued score, his music continually hitting just the right note adding the perfect underpinnings to whatever scene they might be accompanying.
My favorite bits are, somewhat surprisingly, a series of almost ethereal flashbacks of Abner recollecting pieces of his life with deceased wife Ellen (an unrecognizable Dixie Carter). There is a mysteriously timeless quality to these moments that craft a dreamlike spell that’s beautiful and heartrending. Teems inserts these sequences with a timely precision that cuts right to the quick, and if some of the primary narrative can at times feel labored these scenes of delicate intimacy definitely do not.
Watching this project for a second time I cannot say I was quite as euphoric as I was after that first initial SIFF screening. All the same, this is one of those movies that sticks with you long after the climax rumbles to its conclusions, its character’s actions speaking to larger truths packing an emotional punch. It is a muted melodrama hitting at ideas and concepts as universal as the path the Moon takes as it revolves around the Earth. This is a strong movie, even an invigorating one, That Evening Sun a timeless old school saga worth discovering.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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