Through the Looking Glass: My Review of The Evening Sun, Newly Released February 2010

Ok. This is my second movie review in a row. This is a review of The Evening Sun. The story takes place with a man 80 years of age, a Tennessee farmer called Abner Meecham, daftly played by Hal Holbrook,. Meechem was in a nursing home placed there by his lawyer son, Paul. played by Walton Goggins. The lawyer son is removed and emotionally estranged from his father, and basically looks at Abner as being an old man and all used up. You don't see more compassion from the son until later on in the story, where he redeems himself.

Meecham is in good health, but when his wife died, agreed to his son's idea to go into a nursing home, but found out while he was there that he was bored and restless. Here, the interpretation is that Meechem was very depressed after his wife died, and basically gave up on life, so he agreed to be placed in the nursing home. After a short while, he realizes that he still has more life in himself, and runs away from the nursing home. He goes back to his home, only to find a family living there that was an arrangement through his son. The head of the family household that took over Meecham's residence is an unappetizing and creepy lout called Lonzo Choat. Lonzo is convincingly played by Raymond McKinnon.

What I like about this movie is that this man is portrayed as someone who still has spunk, even though some of his decisions are questionable. I won't give that away, you need to see the movie to see what I mean about questionable. Actually, the movie would have been better had he not had some questionable behavior, since, again that negatively stereotypes an older person to be less competent. Perhaps the writers thought that the movie would not sell as well had he been portrayed as a completely rational person.