Call them Southern Agrarians. Abner Meacham’s ramshackle farm is not much, but it is more than enough motivation for a feud with his archrival Lonzo Choat. This might be contemporary Tennessee, but Meacham and Choat have more than a little of the Hatfields and McCoys in them throughout director Scott Teems’s That Evening Sun, which opened in New York November 5.
The octogenarian Meacham has been betrayed by his body and his yuppie son. Consigned to a nursing home following a bad fall, the irascible Meacham finds the environment “soul-deadening,” so he steals away to spend his final days in the comfort of his old farm. However, he discovers his son has sold the property to the abusive Choat. Confident in his superior moral claim on the land, Meacham resorts to squatting in the sharecropper cabin, starting a not-so-cold war with the younger man.
Though the law might be with Choat, he does not present a sympathetic figure when pressing his case, particularly after Meacham reports him for domestic abuse. While Meacham might be a difficult man to love, Choat seems to be even harder to identify with. As both men dig in—absolutely certain of their respective positions—impending calamity seems inevitable.
Sun takes its title from Jimmie Rodgers’s Blue Yodel 3, but the lyric “hate to see the evening sun go down . . .” turns up in scores of blues and folk songs that predate Rodgers by decades. Still, the Rodgers recording is effectively used as a touchstone for Meacham, a man apparently on his last go-round.
Based on William Gay’s very southern short story, Sun is not exactly Southern Gothic per se, but it has gothic tendencies; including Meacham’s ghostly visions and a somewhat creepy trip to the taxidermist. It is undeniably a product of the Southern literary tradition, in which a late act of humanity is presented in an ironic light.
Best known for his one-man show Mark Twain Tonight, Hal Holbrook gives a fully realized performance. He brings both genuine intensity and plain dignity to the film as the hardheaded geezer. Some might actually find it uncomfortably realistic to watch as his formerly proud Meacham is bent low by age.
Unfortunately, as the lowlife Choat, co-producer Ray McKinnon is no match for the veteran actor. While he looks the part, he lacks the malevolent grit to counterbalance the powerful Holbrook, which throws the entire film out of balance.
However, Barry Corbin (best known as Maurice, the former astronaut in Northern Exposure) more than holds his own in a memorably understated and nuanced supporting role as Thurl Chessor, Meacham’s neighbor, who appears to be able to balance pride and pragmatism—in his advanced age—far better than his old sort-of friend.
Sun arguably stacks the deck in favor of Meacham both in its screenplay and through casting. Still, it winds its way to a surprisingly interesting place. Far from perfect, it still has some notable elements, especially the work of Holbrook and Corbin.
Ultimately it has a deliberately ragged quality and a tragic logic that echoes the country blues—in much the same way Jimmie Rodgers did.
Joe Bendel blogs on jazz and cultural issues at jbspins.blogspot.com and coordinated the Jazz Foundation of America's instrument donation campaign for musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
