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VIFF 2009 | That Evening Sun
By VIFF Correspondent Anne CasselmanThat Evening Sun
USA, 2009, 115min
DIR: Scott Teems
That Evening Sun opens with scenes from geriatric purgatory at a nursing home in Tennessee. It is not difficult to cheer on 80-year old Abner Meecham (Hal Holbrook, in a pitch-perfect performance) when he walks out the door, bow-legged and sure-footed, without a backward glance. Any elation that we may feel about his escape swiftly ends when he arrives at his homestead to find it rented to a mean-looking white trash sonofabitch called Lonzo Choate (played by Ray McKinnon) and his wife and daughter. Add insult to injury, Meecham's son gave them a lease-to-buy option. Abner moves into the tenant cottage next door to the main house and wages war against Choate.
Schema Magazine's coverage of VIFF 2009 is sponsored by the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival
With the battle lines drawn thus begins Abner's fight for the right to spend his last days as he chooses. It's a tense and heartbreaking cause to bear witness to because it's a war he can't win. Eventually the full story unfolds, the shades of grey emerge. After Meecham was widowed, he ran his farm alone until he broke his hip, which is how he wound up in the care facility at the behest of his lawyer son who knew too well what a close call hs father's fall was. Meecham himself is not without his flaws. He's intractable, judgmental, and unsympathetic. Nonetheless it's agony to watch him rail against those around him as his freedom and way of life are robbed. Director Scott Teems keeps the audience wound tight since we're all too aware that there is no happy ending to this story, only a tragic one. But one thing is made very clear by Meecham's character and its stark contrast with those of his son and Choate. They sure don't make 'em like they used to and that's a shame.
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October 16, 2009 at 1:19 AM
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