starting out in the evening

It's a feeling many college students get: that hopeless, uninspired hole that opens up while staring at a blank document on a laptop screen. That feeling is how director Andrew Wagner begins his new film, Starting Out in the Evening, except Leonard Schiller exchanges a Red Bull for a cup of tea and a MacBook Pro for a typewriter.

Schiller (Frank Langella) is an out-of-print, 70-something author grudgingly determined to finish his current novel before he dies. But two main obstacles lie in his path: his poor health from a recent heart attack and the fact he has been writing the novel for the last 10 years.

Bright and eager graduate student Heather Wolfe (Six Feet Under's Lauren Ambrose) contacts Schiller and communicates her desire to write her thesis on his works. Schiller, at first unwilling to budge from his routine, Upper West Side writer lifestyle, eventually caves, and the two begin to have weekly interviews, mainly driven by Heather's belief that her thesis can revitalize Schiller's career.

Leonard's daughter, Ariel (Lili Taylor), a yoga and pilates teacher- who lives nearby, is nearing forty and dealing with a mid-life must-have-children crisis. Her life gets a jolt when she sees her former lover Casey (Adrian Lester) late one night on the street. The two quickly fall back together, despite Leonard's warnings and each's memory of past pain. Taylor and Lester exhibit a strikingly organic chemistry, and the relationship successfully avoids cliche.

The film, though slow and contrived at times, has some provocative scenes that keep the audience's interest. Wagner, who co-wrote the script, adeptly unwraps each couple, exposing the intricacies of the characters and the boundaries between art and reality.

It features some excellent performances, especially from Frank Langella, whose Leonard is fragile, pitiful and commanding at the same time. Though failing to provide much closure, Starting Out is a heartfelt thesis on, as Leonard likes to put it, the "madness of art."