“Starting Out in the Evening”

It took nerve for this intelligent, involving and conspicuously adult film to open the same week as the blockbuster “Enchanted,” but the risk paid off. Bigger than expected numbers turned out for a film that is almost shocking in its ability to create high drama from an unlikely source. That would be the nature of writing and a writer’s life as seen through the central relationships of a novelist in his 70s. Making this happen is the presence of a trio of top actors -- Frank Langella, Lili Taylor and Lauren Ambrose -- as a half-forgotten writer, his daughter and an ambitious graduate student. You won’t see more convincing acting by a committed ensemble anywhere this fall.