Elegy

When a film offers some good quotes and/or insights concerning how we live our lives it is for me always worth the ticket, and Elegy offers plenty. It is definitely not for the entertainment junkie, but it is nicely paced and keeps the intellect awake for the duration of the experience.

Ben Kingsley is an art and literature professor who still has not grown up, and this is mainly represented by him not being able to have a committed adult relationship, his jealousy, and the fact that he still holds a silly, bitter grudge against his son. It is a film about what growing up means, but also the possible pain and loneliness growing old.

"Elegy" is the fifth movie Ben Kingsley has done this year and its been so good to see him back in form the last couple years cause I honestly thought that doing "Bloodrayne" was his way of saying "I'm losing my mind." Nicholas Meyer wrote the movie from a novel by Phillip Roth. The last time Meyer adapted something from Roth we got Anthony Hopkins playing a black guy in "The Human Stain", and that was just one of many problems that that movie had. "Elegy" was directed by Isabel Coixet though, who I really only know from the short film "Bastille", one of a group of films that can be found in the all-around beautiful love letter to Paris film, "Paris J'Taime." She seems well-suited for this love story, as do Kingsley and Penelope Cruz. Only the question is, can they all make a better movie than "The Human Stain"? Kingsley plays cultural critic David Kepesh, a man who spent most of the 60's sexual revolution unfortunately married. Now a divorced college professor, Kepesh has devoted much of his after graduation activities to hitting on former students, his most recent conquest being Consuela Castillo (Penelope Cruz), a hard working woman from a Cuban family. Just Consuela awakens a sense of passion in him and soon he is thrown into a confusing situation where he jealously wants to have her for his own but his fear of commitment to another woman has him pushing her back when she wants to get closer.

At times funny and heartbreakingly moving, this movie mostly just makes you think how lazy most men are when it comes to relationships. I found it interesting how even a cultural critic, a man who spends his life looking for deeper meaning in everything, can look at a woman and only see a sex toy. That what a woman holds inside is a short substitute for what she holds outside. David being self-conscious about his age adds another dimension, backing up that long held belief by men that women are also more concerned with what's on the outside as well. It's all material that has been worked over before in countless romances and the ending relies on that old romantic cliché of throwing in a fatal disease that threatens the life of one of the characters but in general director Isabel Coixet creates a moving, heartfelt love story complete with sensual sex scenes, beautiful piano-background music and some really nice (and tasteful) shots of Penelope Cruz's boobs and ass.

There is also some really excellent acting going on in this movie. Kingsley charges into his role like a lion, showing David's brashness in preying on the young girls he so dearly missed out on during his married youth, but he also brings regret, vulnerability, and cluelessness to David that make him worthy of sympathy. And Penelope Cruz couldn't be better as his above-age Lolita, bringing a soft-spoken sexiness and warmth to a woman trying mightily to disarm a man primarily drawn to women as play things. And where has Dennis Hopper been? This is one of his best performances in a long time, playing a man whose gone through the wringer a couple times with relationships himself who now offers up his own wisdom, coupled with some comic relief as well. Patricia Clarkson does what she can in a small role as an on-again off-again sex buddy for David. She has a fantastic scene in the movie later on where she describes what life is like for older women but then unfortunately the character is never seen again.

"Elegy" doesn't simmer with romance but it's not exactly a slow-moving disaster either. It offers up some food for thought and it's artfully created while Kingsley, Cruz, and Hopper each supply fantastic performances. If you're interested in a May-December romance, this one fits the bill just fine for the time being.

In Manhattan, the middle-aged writer, art critic and professor and aspirant piano player and photographer David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley) questions that his age does not affect his sex drive and recalls words of Bette Davis ("Old age is not for sissies") and Tostoi ("The biggest surprise in a man's life is old age"). Despite of his great culture, the intellectual David is a man that has grown old but never grown up, and he is unable to last a relationship, including with his oncologist son Kenneth Kepesh (Peter Sarsgaard). The exceptions are his old poet friend and confident George O'Hearn (Dennis Hopper) and the independent businesswoman Carolyn (Patricia Clarkson), with whom he has an affair for more than twenty years. When he meets the elegant, educated and gorgeous Cuban student Consuela Castillo (Penélope Cruz) in his literature class, he feels a great sexual attraction for her and seduces her in the end of the period. They have a love affair for one and half years, but David is always insecure being thirty and something years older than the student. When Consuela forces David to come to her graduation party and meet her family and friends, he takes a decision that affects their relationship forever.

The Spanish Isabel Coixet is certainly one of the most sensitive directors of the cinema industry. "My Life without Me" and "The Secret Life of Words" are among the most beautiful, touching and heartbreaking movies I have ever seen. "Elegy" is another wonderful movie of this awesome director that deals with another real theme, the aging of men, which could be difficult for a female director to understand and correctly disclose on the screen. However, the romance works mainly because the lead male role seems to be tailored for Sir Ben Kingsley (it could be Sean Connery a couple of years ago). I can not imagine any other actor that could personify David Kepesh as portrayed in the story. Further, Penélope Cruz deserved the Oscar for her performance, with a more realistic character than in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona". The Academy wrote right through wrong performances. She is incredibly gorgeous in the role of Consuela Castillo. The always excellent Patricia Clarkson, the irregular Dennis Hopper and the "disappeared" Peter Sarsgaard have also memorable performances in this outstanding romance. The cinematography and the music score complete this beautiful work of art. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Fatal" ("Fatal")

Ben Kingsley, who is capable of playing practically any role, seems to be remarkable at playing men who are very smart but their thoughts are a lot less than pure most of the time. Elegy is a film that could easily have been written with him in mind, though by the time it's over, Penelope Cruz has stolen away with it, and changed Kingsley's character in the progression. It's properly made.

Kingsley seems to be just about the entire movie as a self-seeking book critic. He was married in the past, and has a well-to-do son. He got divorced years ago and has a sex pal relationship with another woman who he sees rarely, played by Patricia Clarkson, who I can totally see having the capability for no-strings occasional liaisons. He is frequently attracted to his female students, and sometimes has sex with some of them. Still, to steer clear of trouble, he always waits until they graduate. With one of these women, Penelope Cruz's character, a more profound relationship grows.

But Kingsley has never matured in this manner. He is preoccupied with jealousy, certain that she is seeing someone else, someone younger, more handsome and virile. He even shows up at a dance he knows she's attending, to check up on her. His doubt frustrates and deters her, because she cannot put up with not being trusted.

When the time comes, the movie makes a dramatic bend which surrounds all the deepest bona fide feelings of the story. And in these scenes, Cruz is peacefully compelling and dreadfully real. You come to appreciate why the director, Isabel Coixet, cast Cruz rather than a younger, authentically college-age actress. An actress necessitates wisdom and the familiarity of time to play these scenes, and Cruz must have both, especially now that I'm seeing her shortly after her incredible performance in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

That this nuanced drama with erudite cultural ambiance is not merely a self-indulgent male writer's wet dream about the horny scoundrel and the exquisite and charming Venus is a relief. That it sees Manhattan plainly as a location benefits this story because it is a place where we suppose things like this are liable to take place, not like the typical burgh where we live. Then there is Dennis Hopper as the old comrade with whom Kingsley has coffee and plays racquetball, who tries to bring wisdom to Kingsley's activities, but sees no light at the end of the tunnel. And Peter Sarsgaard as Kingsley's son, with problems of his own, and a father who has become not only a shame but an unrelated matter. But what the movie's not afraid to do is let you in on Kingsley's feelings after awhile. Who cares about all these things he should accept as responsibility when he's so immersed in love for this new, young person?

This is the first time that Roth has been successfully transferred to the screen. An uncompromising movie for grownups with two exquisite central performances, and some very nice supporting turns by Clarkson, Hopper and Sarsgaard. What impressed me about this movie is that it dares to be slow, dark, almost meditative. Roth's short book does not have much plot to it, so that adapting it to the screen runs more risks than would be the case for one of his more developed novels. But the director and screenwriter make a virtue of the book's spare narrative elements. It takes its time studying faces, glances and shadows. I will be happy if I see another movie half as good this year.