The Evening Star

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The Evening Star
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Robert Harling
Screenplay by	Robert Harling
Based on	The Evening Star by Larry McMurtry
Produced by	David Kirkpatrick Polly Platt Keith Samples
Starring	Shirley MacLaine Bill Paxton Juliette Lewis Miranda Richardson Ben Johnson Scott Wolf George Newbern Marion Ross Mackenzie Astin Donald Moffat Jack Nicholson
Cinematography	Don Burgess
Edited by	David Moritz
Music by	William Ross
Production company	Rysher Entertainment
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	December 25, 1996 (1996-12-25)
Running time	129 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$20 million[citation needed]
Box office	$12,767,815[citation needed]

The Evening Star is a 1996 American comedy-drama film. It is a sequel to the Academy Award-winning 1983 film Terms of Endearment starring Shirley MacLaine, who reprises the role of Aurora Greenway, for which she won an Oscar in the original film. Based on the 1992 novel by Larry McMurtry, the screenplay is by Robert Harling, who also served as director.

The story takes place about fifteen years after the original, following the characters from 1978 to 1993. It focuses on Aurora's relationship with her three grandchildren, her late daughter Emma's best friend Patsy and her longtime housekeeper Rosie. Along the way Aurora enters into a relationship with a younger man, while watching the world around her change as old friends pass on and her grandchildren make lives of their own.

Miranda Richardson co-stars as a Houston divorcee and Aurora's rival, Patsy Carpenter. Juliette Lewis plays Aurora's rebellious granddaughter, Melanie Horton, with Marion Ross as Aurora's housekeeper (Golden Globe nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category) and Bill Paxton as Aurora's mental health counselor and lover. The movie was Ben Johnson's last, in a career that spanned over 60 years. The film is dedicated to him. Jack Nicholson returns in an extended cameo appearance, playing the role he played in Terms of Endearment, retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove.

Unlike its predecessor, The Evening Star received negative reviews from critics and was a box office bomb.

Plot[]

Years have passed since the death of her daughter, Emma. Aurora Greenway is still her usual strong, willful self, but all is not well with the three grandchildren she raised after Emma's death, particularly eldest boy Tommy, who is serving time in jail on a drug charge.

Younger grandson Teddy now has a girlfriend and a son, neither of whom Aurora warms to. Melanie (who is both the youngest and the only girl out of the three grandkids), is all but grown and still living with Aurora at home but giving serious thought to moving out. Aurora's only true companion is housekeeper Rosie, particularly now that a man she's been spending time with, the General, is a friend, not a romance.

Her late daughter's old friend, Patsy, still has a home in Houston and thinks of herself as Aurora's friend now, dispensing advice to Melanie, something that Aurora does not appreciate. Though she caught her boyfriend cheating on her and subsequently tries to overdose on Patsy's muscle relaxants, Melanie eventually moves out to Los Angeles with this same boyfriend after he pleads with her for a fresh start.

Meanwhile, Rosie is being courted by an elderly gentleman named Arthur, who has bought astronaut Garrett Breedlove's former house next door. On seeing how lonely Aurora obviously is, Rosie tricks her into seeing a licensed counselor, Jerry, to whom Aurora admits that she is still seeking "the love of my life." She starts to chronicle her life in scrapbooks, which helps her loneliness.

Thoroughly unprofessional in almost every way, Jerry jumps into a romantic situation with Aurora himself. However, he has a fling with Patsy along the way, which Aurora discovers, and more disturbingly, his ulterior motives for becoming romantically involved with Aurora at all center around long-unresolved Oedipus complex issues, which Aurora soon learns and which ends their relationship abruptly.

After many visits to Tommy in prison where he trashes her baked goods out of defiance and sullenness, Aurora is finally able to reach him through a file of scrapbook pages of him with his mother Emma when he was a child. This seems to help heal his anger issues and mend the broken relationship he has with his grandmother.

Needing a new cause, Aurora decides to take charge after Melanie decides to stay in Los Angeles to try to become an actress, her boyfriend having left her for another woman. Aurora is peeved to discover that Patsy has exactly the same idea. Melanie succeeds in landing a role on a television show, which Aurora and Patsy celebrate, but they end up having a big fight on the flight home.

Aurora comes home to a new problem, however, when it turns out that Rosie is critically ill. She is left once more facing the prospect of being alone. Against Arthur's wishes, Aurora carries Rosie 'home' to the Greenway house, and tends to her lovingly until Rosie eventually succumbs to her illness. Arthur brings Rosie's ashes to Aurora, asking her to do what she feels would be best for Rosie's memory.

A few days later, Aurora is writing in her diary in her backyard gazebo alongside Rosie's urn when Garrett surprises her. This visit cheers her up immensely and seems to rejuvenate her spirits; she confides that she's still searching for her one true love, and Garrett advises her to find that true love soon because "there aren't that many shopping days left till Christmas."

Tommy is released from prison and he and Aurora embrace at the prison exit where she has arrived to take him home. He is able to land a promising job after taking computer classes in prison, and eventually he and his new girlfriend start a family and get married. Their child, Henry, is completely doted upon by Aurora, who starts teaching him music lessons.

Scrapbooks continue to be filled year by year, until one day Aurora suffers a stroke while teaching Henry the piano; this greatly slows Aurora but also brings the family closer together, with Patsy spending all her days tending to Aurora's needs and the rest of the family close by. She and Patsy make peace with each other at last, apologizing for so many years of battling when both loved the same family so fiercely. At Christmastime, Aurora is bedridden but surrounded by all her grandchildren and friends as she passes quietly, calling out softly to Emma. The ending scene features young Henry playing the familiar theme from Terms of Endearment on the piano as Tommy sits alongside him.

Cast[]

• Shirley MacLaine as Aurora Greenway
• Bill Paxton as Jerry Bruckner
• Juliette Lewis as Melanie Horton
• Miranda Richardson as Patsy Carpenter
• Ben Johnson as Arthur Cotton
• Scott Wolf as Bruce Burgess
• George Newbern as Tommy Horton
• Marion Ross as Rosie Dunlop
• Mackenzie Astin as Teddy Horton
• Donald Moffat as Hector Scott
• Jack Nicholson as Garrett Breedlove
• China Kantner as Jane
• Jennifer Grant as Ellen
• Jake Langerud as Henry

Reception[]

Unlike Terms of Endearment, the film was not a box-office success, grossing only $12,767,815 (unadjusted) and received poor reviews from critics.^{[citation needed]} On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 22% rating from 27 reviews.^[1] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A-" on scale of A to F.^[2]

Roger Ebert, in his Chicago Sun-Times review of December 27, 1996, described The Evening Star as "a completely unconvincing sequel", awarding it one-and-a-half stars of a possible four. He said the story lacks any points of interest, and found the character developments contrived and clunky.^[3] Mick LaSalle, in a December 25 San Francisco Chronicle review, similarly said that the film lacks a story and instead "is constructed as a series of incidents involving Aurora and her family." He praised Shirley MacLaine's performance but derided the characterizations and overall tedium of the film, summing it up as "one of the worst films of the year".^[4] Ebert and LaSalle both criticized the numerous character deaths, interpreting them as a desperate attempt to maintain the viewer's interest.^[3][4]

External links[]

• The Evening Star at IMDb
• The Evening Star at AllMovie
• The Evening Star at Box Office Mojo

References[]