That Evening Sun (2009) ****

Abner Meecham (Hal Holbrook) is old school. His ideas and ways of thinking are his own and progress isn't going to change that one iota. The thing about old school is that it gets put out to pasture to eventually die and rot. That's what happened to Abner, shipped off to a nursing home to wait for his heart to give out. But being the old school kind of guy that Abner is he packs his suitcase and walks back to his farm; his home. It's at home that he realizes how far out to pasture he has been dumped because his farm is really his anymore. His son has leased it to Lonzo Choat (Ray McKinnon), an individual that Abner had little use for to begin with. Choat and his family are trying to make a start with something, though it's unclear whether Lonzo has the skill and drive to get anywhere with being a farmer. It's a kind of role reversal with Lonzo taking the main house and Abner refusing to leave the old sharecropper's shack because this is his home.


What That Evening Sun boils down to is a pissing contest between Abner and Lonzo. For Abner it was enough for his son to lease the place out from under him, but to this piece of trash it was a pure betrayal. In Lonzo's eyes Abner is still the same stuck up old fool that isn't willing to give him a chance and move on. It's time for him to be somebody instead of a drunken joke of a man. These two men banter back and forth trying to find a way to push each other over the edge and claim what they believe is theirs by rights. The sad part of the whole affair is that Chaot's wife (Carrie Preston) and daughter (Mia Wasikowska) are caught in the middle, balancing a drunken husband/father and a cynical old man out back. 


At the core of That Evening Sun is what is their to hope for? Are either of the sides in this pissing contest right? Does one deserve their prize over the other? Does deserve even have anything to do with it? In the end it isn't even about the farm. It's about who the competition represents. Holbrook and McKinnon play out their fierce struggle not with fists or weapons, but with words and a few actions that get close to the edge but never quite go over. They play off each other perfectly. 


The film could be about a great many things. Holding onto the old traditions. Passing the torch. What it boils down to is who believes they're owed that torch more. Each player has a hand on the bat, but neither are willing to let go. This is a nice film shot in those Tennessee farmlands that I just drove through a few weeks ago, though this film captures a lot more of the spirit as compared to my view from the highway and the Stuckey's. Holbrook is the core of this film and delivers a performance that will be akin to the other aging actors that have started playing the ages in recent years. A very good film that you've probably never heard of.