From KCRW in Santa Monica, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to The Treatment.

I'm Elvis Mitchell.

You can also hear the show at KCRW.com.

Family and the times it bind and sometimes strangle are the subject of writer-director

Andrew Wagner's work he dealt with in his first film, a largely improvisational film that used

members of his own family and his new film adaptation of starting out in the evening, which he

also wrote and directed, family and those frictions and struggles and pressures and reliefs

come in a much more subtle ways, I think.

First of all, Andrew, thanks for much for being here.

Oh, thank you, Elvis. It's a privilege to be here.

Oh, well, it's my pleasure.

Now, for the audience, tell them what starting out in the evening in broad strokes is about,

because I know it sits really more character than plot.

Starting out in the evening is the story of Leonard Schiller, played by Frank Langella.

Leonard is a novelist who in the evening of his life has one thing left to do, and that's

finished this novel that he's been working on for over 10 years.

He wakes up each day to a routine defined by facing the solitude in his writing room and the emptiness of the blank page.

His main contact to the world is through his daughter, Ariel, played by Lily Taylor.

Lily is very unlike her father, untethered to either career or substantive relationship.

She teaches Pilates in New York City, and whereas her father is a New York intellectual committed

to the meaning of found in language and in stories built on language.

...