Evening Class (novel) Evening Class (novel) Evening Class is a novel by Maeve Binchy. It was adapted as the award-winning film "Italian for Beginners" (2000) by writer-director Lone Scherfig, who failed to formally acknowledge the source, although at the very end of the closing credits is the line 'with thanks to Maeve Binchy'. A story of many Irish men and women from various backgrounds and how a teacher, Nora O'Donoghue (known as "Signora"), and an Italian evening class changes their lives over the course of a year. Each chapter deals with the life story of one or more students in the class. In
Starting Out in the Evening Out in the Evening" has the feeling of a film in which the actors, left to direct themselves, played into their own self-indulgent instincts, and the only one who resisted was the old pro who knew better." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" called the film "remarkable" and said "Langella delivers a master class in acting [with a] deeply felt portrait of a lion in winter." Meghan Keane of "The New York Sun" stated, "The glowing accolades that the filmmakers attempt to bestow on the novelist Brian Morton ultimately result in an undercooked product . . . [T]he film is unable