Elegy
Starring Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz, and Dennis Hopper
Directed by Isabel Coixet
Rated R
Without looking, I'd say that love stories are probably
the most common types of movies. That's because they can be disguised as any
number of things, from musicals to murder mysteries. So to see one - a smart
one, no less - that has no other pretense but to be an investigation of how a
relationship works or doesn't work is a bit like walking a high wire without a
net. I mean, Transformers has a love story in it.
Elegy is, for better or worse, about two people
who fall in love while not meaning to. David (Sir
Ben Kingsley) is a professor and art and literature critic. He was
married once when he was a young man, left his wife and child because that life
was not for him, and has never been in a deep relationship since.He enjoys
intellectual conversations with his friend (Dennis
Hopper), and sex with women. That's his world.
Consuela (Penelope
Cruz) is a beautiful student of David's who, as you can imagine, has
had some unfulfilling relationships because her looks open her up to not being
taken seriously. David wants to take her seriously, or should I say, he
seriously wants to take her to bed. But their relationship grows roots; she's
more in tune with his view on things than David would have ever thought and
David is a better lover and companion than she could've dreamed.
David, though, is so unaccustomed to being in this
situation and being the object of affection of someone so lovely, that he
believes from the very beginning that the relationship is doomed to fail. She'll
find someone younger, she'll get bored, etc. The irony is, that's not the talk
of a man looking for causal encounters, now is it?
Elegy is based on the
Philip Roth novel The Dying Animal, and
though it's not saying much, this is the best adaptation of the writer's work.
Cruz gives her best English-speaking performance to date, and I can trace a lot
of that to her being more comfortable with the language. Anyone who has seen her
in the Almodovar films knows she can act, but English, I think, has really hurt
her self-confidence. It doesn't show here or in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Ben Kingsley is a tough one to figure. Just look at his
work in the past twelve months: As an alcoholic hitman in You Kill Me, as
Merlin in The Last Legion, another evildoer in Transsiberian, as a
pothead analyst in The Wackness, and now a brooding, self-centered
60-year-old sex fiend. They aren't all home runs, but as an actor, he has a
pretty high batting average. And it's the breadth of roles he takes now;
Kingsley truly is getting better at his craft by allowing himself to pursue
areas of the human experience we've never seen him explore. You can probably
date this back to Sexy Beast, if you're trying to find an obvious starting
point, but that hunger was there long before that.
And because we see love stories of every stripe, it's
daring to ask a movie about two characters and nothing else to play out
naturally. Elegy does so quietly and quite well.
Friday, September 5, 2008 at 12:00AM
Reader Comments (2)
Ben is the man, though you forgot his supporting role in this summer's The Love Guru (hopefully so has he). I have to say I really loved Elegy and wouldn't be surprised if Penelope is remembered come Oscar season (for this or for VCB)
How could I forget the pissmop scene from The Love Guru. On second thought, don't answer that.