Review: Elegy

Sir Ben Kingsley plays David Kepesh, author, literature professor, and although in his early sixties, he’s quite the pants man, too. Divorced, he’s had an on-and-off sexual relationship with his mistress (Patricia Clarkson), and at the end of every school year he throws a big party that is basically a hunting ground for his next young conquest. This time around, it’s the lovely Consuela (Penelope Cruz). However, Consuela proves to be quite unlike any other girl...David actually develops real feelings for her, and isn’t quite sure what he’s meant to do with those feelings, which include jealousy, mistrust, and insecurity. Is this narcissistic commitment-phobe (who probably has more years behind him than ahead of him) going to become his own worst enemy and blow something potentially enriching? Things certainly seem doom-laden. Dennis Hopper plays a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and David’s best friend (and fellow philanderer), who warns David not to get too close before it ends embarrassingly for him. Peter Sarsgaard is David’s estranged doctor son, whose mother he long ago left to pursue a life as a pants man.

AKA “Gandhi’s Gotta Have It”. Based on a Phillip Roth (“The Human Stain”) novel, and directed by Isabel Coixet (“My Life Without Me”), this 2008 drama was an interesting experience for me. I initially only watched it due to boredom and spare time. I started off admiring the performances but being somewhat ambivalent due to unlikeable characters. It was interesting, just not terribly likeable or enjoyable. By the mid-section the main character was making self-destructive choices and behaving extremely childishly in a manner that was starting to be hard to take. By the end of the film however, I had been pretty much won over. Hell, I was in tears by the time it finished, as the film proves what we all know; Life can be a cruel bastard sometimes, and even an arrogant intellectual skirt-chaser doesn’t really deserve life’s cruel twists of fate. The film slowly sneaks up on you, I guess, and moves you in ways you weren’t expecting and didn’t think possible. For starters, this film contains the first nude scene that’ll probably bring you to tears. Adapted by Nicholas Meyer (director of “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and adaptor of “The Human Stain”), what starts as a sort of academic “Venus” (a film I didn’t much care for) with elements of “Wonder Boys” and “Autumn in New York” (but done right), ultimately becomes something more lasting and tear-jerking. I also much prefer Ben Kingsley to that old windbag Peter O’Toole any day of the week. I think things sorta sneak up on the Kingsley character too, really.

Still, the early and especially the middle portions aren’t all that easy to warm to, and Kingsley does behave like a stubborn douchebag. You can understand what he goes through in the film, and I ultimately went there with him, but it’s not so easy getting there due to his arrogant pig-headedness. I mean, just go to the family get-together you arrogant, self-absorbed prick. What would it hurt? So I can’t quite say I loved the film, but I won’t deny being ultimately affected by it, so it must’ve been doing something right, given how much you want to hate Kingsley’s character for being so slow to mature, for someone with obvious great intellect. It’s a good, solid film, and Kingsley deserved an Oscar nomination for this, no doubt about it in my mind. When he wants to be, he can be just about the greatest living actor. Unfortunately, this movie, “Schindler’s List”, and “Sexy Beast” are among the far too few occasions since 1982 that Kingsley’s skill has been in full-show (I don’t think I’ll ever quite forgive him for appearing in the embarrassingly desperate and unfunny “The Love Guru”). He may not seem like the chick-magnet type, but he’s actually perfect casting as a man whose intellect is his chief selling point. An Oscar-nominated Penelope Cruz is a good ten years too old for her role, but given what her character goes through in the role, I understand why she was cast. She’s nowhere near as impressive as anyone else in the film, but she ultimately does her job. I also understand why Patricia Clarkson was cast as Kingsley’s long-time mistress. She’s an appropriate intellectual match for him. However, for some reason (perhaps superficial) I didn’t quite buy her as the long-time mistress type for a noted skirt-chaser. Much better are Dennis Hopper and Peter Sarsgaard as Kingsley’s colleague and best friend, and his estranged son respectively. I doubt Kingsley and Hopper would’ve ever hung-out in real-life, but Hopper nonetheless does well in what you might call the Bruno Kirby or Rob Reiner sidekick role in this story of a May/December romance. The cynical lines between Kingsley and Sarsgaard offer up some of the best moments in the film (‘Even your adulteries don’t compare!’- Kingsley), and Sarsgaard is believable as the son who doesn’t hate his father at all but has moved on from the point of really needing him. It’s good to see Deborah Harry in a small role as Hopper’s partner, but it’s not an especially big role.

This film could’ve been a real turn-off, but is thankfully saved by good performances by most of the cast, and a twist at the ¾ mark that lifts the material to a higher plain than you expect. I didn’t much like the Kingsley character, but it’s kinda necessary for what eventually plays out to really work. Points off for the sometimes woozy camerawork by Jean-Claude Larrieu, who seems drunk, to be honest. It adds nothing to the film. At all. It’s certainly a worthy film, if not an especially likeable one. People who don’t worry about such things might get even more out of the film than I did. I was eventually won over, but the destination is more worthy than the journey, perhaps this time.

Rating: B-