That Evening Sun

There is a lot to recommend Scott Teems "That Evening Sun", and I'm happy I was able to catch a recent screening as a premier event of the Tallahassee Film Festival. Kindly indulge my regional preference for literature and the performing arts, but you really can't beat the local color of the rural South. This melancholy narrative is driven by simmering grudges,ill-gotten gains, and combustible relationships. It's as though William Faulker and Flannery O'Connor collaborated on Teem's script with its southern Gothic allusions and ironic events.

Hal Holbrook as the title character, Abner Meecham, is brilliant with his tenacious attitude, and wizened expressions. He may be old, but he's still capable, resourceful, and completely self-absorbed. Dream sequences and memories allow us to see his softer side as he relives tender moments with his late wife (played by the bewitching Dixie Carter, his real-life wife). He receives little support from his son, a busy attorney well-played by Walton Goggins. Their mutual disaffection is palpable and practically Shakespearean. Abner is not easy to love.

Abner's primary nemesis, Lonzo Choat, is a surly ne'er-do-well who relies as much on his monthly disability check as he does on cheap beer. Ray McKinnon gets a lot of mileage out of Choat's brutal nature and proprietary relationships. His rustic wife (Carrie Preston) and daughter (Mia Wasikowska) each exhibit individual strengths, but can't overcome the overarching power of Lonzo Choat.

Barry Corbin also lends a powerful performance as Abner's long-time neighbor and fellow octogenarian, Thurl Chessor. Abner and Thurl have known each other long enough that conversation is perfunctory, but comfortable. Neither wastes words nor breath, they are comfortable passing time without much fuss or muss, but not too much time lest they seem too dependent, too feminine.

"That Evening Sun" is beautifully shot capturing the simple bucolic beauty of rural Tennessee as kudzu slowly reclaims abandoned barns, and landscapes buzz with the heat and activity of hidden hives and birdsong. The soundtrack is a nod to depression-era country crooners, and Jimmie Rodgers adds the ideal poetic punctuation with his yearning yodels. I will see this one again.

Abner Meecham,who has been living in a nursing home,is unhappy & wants to live out his final days on the farm land where he had made his living for over 50 years. One day,he packs his things & just walks away from it all. Despite a first failure (where he is picked up by the police & returned back to the home),Abner,undaunted tries again,this time getting further,with the help of a taxi cab driver,to his old farm land. Problem is,the land & the house are now leased by Lonzo Choat,who Abner doesn't like,one bit. Abner takes up in the workers quarters,just off the main house,much to the chagrin of Lonzo, who wants Abner off of his property,a.s.a.p. The following makes for a tense tale,that you know is going to end up badly. Scott Teem ('A Death In The Woods','Roots') directs & writes the screenplay,adapted from the novel, 'I Hate To See The Evening Sun Go Down',by William Gay (the title of which is taken from a line in an old country blues song by Jimmy Rogers). This is a quiet little independent film that in the wrong hands would have turned out to be just another Southern exploitation film (like the kind of films produced by Harry Novak that used to play drive in's back in the 1970's that stereotyped all of the citizens of the South as back woods,slack jawed,inbred,boozing,village idiots that would have sex with farm animals,or family members,or all of the above),but rises above that. The great Hal Holbrook (forever known for his portrayal of Mark Twain on stage & screen)plays Abner,a man who just wants what is rightly his. Ray McKinnon is Lonzo,a man who is just dripping with contempt for Abner. The rest of the cast (unknown by yours truly)turn in shining roles on screen. This is a quiet,little "indie" that drew acclaim at the festivals,but probably won't get much in the way of main steam distribution (I got to see it at one of our cinemas that specializes in foreign & art films),but deserves better. Rated PG-13 by the MPAA,it contains some raunchy language,an unpleasant scene of domestic abuse & some minor adult content.

I had the privilege of seeing That Evening Sun last night at the Atlanta Film Festival. Scott Teems, Terrence Berry, Laura Smith, Ray McKinnon, Walton Goggins, and Larsen Jay were all in attendance and conducted an excellent Q&A afterwords.

There's so much to this film, so I'll start with the acting and go from there. The movie was so perfectly cast, from Hal Holbrook to Ray McKinnon all the way down to Barlow Jacobs the cab driver - they all were so authentic and believable. There was a lot of very good dialog, but I felt in the moments of quiet grief, contemplation, and observation there was so much more said about the characters.

The story itself was very simple - it had no effect on the world outside of the few characters involved - but again it made the whole situation believable and really struck home with a lot of audience members. The movie is very smart - it doesn't hit you over the head with actors stating "I feel remorse, I feel sad, I feel angry." You get to watch their actions in the present reveal their character and past.

Location was perfectly southern, shot just outside of Knoxville on an old farm, complete with the tenant house seen (although the Q&A explained the actual tenant house was disassembled and rebuilt closer to the main house). There is something about truly southern movies that have a feel like no other with a landscape and sound you can't find in Canada, New Zealand, or LA.

The music, done by Michael Penn and the Drive-By Truckers, completed the whole picture with a quiet southern flavor. Scott Teems explained in the Q&A that he wanted a lot of quiet time for the audience to absorb the story and the location. The music was present, but didn't drive scenes.

All in all, this is one of the best independent films I've seen in recent years, and is instantly one of my favorite films of all time. Please go see this film, you will not regret the time spent!

An aging Tennessee farmer returns to his homestead and must confront a family betrayal, the reappearance of an old enemy, and the loss of his farm.

This is the perfect example of how to write an old bull can against the young bull one. Holebrook's character doesn't want trouble, just his pride and the right to go on living the way he once did. He doesn't have much left, but pride. The movie does a great job of making us care for Holebrook, something that was hard to pull off consistently. Hal Holebrook is magnificent, and Oscar worthy here in his portrayal of Abner Meecham. It was hard to pull off, but Holebrook manages to maintain likability along with his grouchy, potentially off-putting role. There's never a moment where we don't sympathize with him, even when he pushes the limits, we manage to emphasize with his actions. I've not seen Holebrook perform a better role than this one. Ray McKinnon is excellent as the hot-shot antagonist, wanting to take over the farm. You'll hate him, and possibly even understand his actions in some cases. Walter Goggins is very good as the ungrateful son of Holebrook's, he did well.

Bottom line. The Sundance Film Festival struck gold with this one, and you will too. A must see

9 ½ 10

In my opinion column, On San Diego, I offered a brief positive review of That Evening Sun after viewing it at the San Diego Film Festival. Those published comments are offered below.

"That Evening Sun," starring Hal Holbrook, shown on Sunday night to a packed house as the last film of the 2009 San Diego Film Festival. Now in his 80s, Holbrook gives a tremendous and subtle performance, as do all of the other actors in this Southern Gothic set in Tennessee: Walton Goggins, Mia Wasikowska, Carrie Preston and Ray McKinnon. With a screenplay written by Scott Teems, like fine red wine, well made and maintained, every character of the movie is developed and complex -- even the barking dog!

The tension between characters, circumstances and passions makes this film a rarity, genuinely gripping from scene to scene and unpredictable to the end. The sound track is beautiful and delicately augments the emotional tension as the film wonderfully plays against the painterly rustic sharecropper house interior, forest, sunset sky and fantastically grizzled faces of authentically rendered people pursuing their respective deep, heartfelt aspirations. Like a Henry James novella, the film is underlain with ambiguity and uncertainty, empathy and shifting sympathies that will provoke conversation; one might pronounce it a good "date movie," with something for both men and women. A gem, this film is the kind one may only see at a film festival.

San Diegans were lucky to be among the first to see the final cut of this fine work. Fortunately, come Thanksgiving time, 2009, "That Evening Sun" will be seen in limited release in Los Angeles and New York theatres. Perchance it will also return to San Diego?