You won't find many movies more character-driven or dialogue-based than Andrew Wagner's Starting Out in the Evening. Featuring one of the best performances of the year by the excellent Frank Langella, Starting Out in the Evening is essentially a character study with no deeper intentions than to be an interesting movie about real people. If you're turned off by all the CGI of the season and don't want to see the overhyped Oscar bait, Starting Out in the Evening is a good alternative, a smart, well-made drama like you don't see that often any more. Frank Langella is so good and so believable that his performance alone makes Starting Out in the Evening worth your time, lifting it above its flaws to be a nice holiday alternative.

Langella plays Leonard Schiller, an aging author whose work is starting to be ignored until a grad student named Heather (Lauren Ambrose), whose life was changed after reading Leonard's first two books, decides to write a grad thesis about the great American author. As Leonard tries to finish what he suspects will be his last book, Heather comes over every day to grill him about his life, most notably how he used his real world to influence his fictional ones and the two develop a connection. The real world is represented by Leonard's daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor), who we also spend time with as she considers rekindling a deeply damaged relationship with her old boyfriend Casey (Adrian Lester).

Starting Out in the Evening contains a few definitely dramatic scenes, but it more often follows the model of its lead character, who says a few times that he just writes characters and then waits for them to do something interesting enough to write a book about. Starting Out in the Evening clearly started off with believable characters and we watch as they do things interesting enough to make a movie about. Don't go into Starting Out in the Evening expecting emotional catharsis or even a standard climax. You won't get it. Fred Parnes & Andrew Wagner's script is the rare kind where you completely believe that these characters existed before the cameras started rolling and believe that they'll go on after the credits roll.

A lot of that believability is courtesy of Frank Langella, who gives an already-lauded performance as Leonard. He imbues Leonard with the perfect sense of dignity, but also allows him to be imperfect. Leonard is controlling with both Ariel and, at first, Heather, and he learns that he won't always be able to be that way as age starts to take its toll. Langella knows that Leonard isn't perfect. He's not a hero. But he feels completely real in every single scene. Ambrose is good too and Lili Taylor can make any movie better, but the writing falters a little bit with every character other than Leonard. Heather feels a bit too much like a plot device and the film is much less interesting when it focuses on Ariel and her troubled relationship.

In the end, Starting Out in the Evening is memorable for the performance of Frank Langella and is completely believable, but you might wish it lingered in your memory for reasons other than an excellent actor's ability. Evening sometimes feels a little too light. It's admirable to create believable, three-dimensional characters, but you still need to give them something memorable to do, especially in a time of year with so many movies vying for that coveted positive word-of-mouth a movie like this needs to break through. Langella alone should make Starting Out in the Evening an arthouse holiday season hit, but it's unlikely to break through despite his award-worthy work. Like Leonard Schiller, the author forgotten by the masses who once adored him, Langella's work has the potential to be ignored. Don't let it be.