Elegy
A love story involving an older man and a much younger woman runs a very serious risk of being little more than some kind of grubby old blokes’ sex fantasy vehicle. Elegy, directed by Isabel Croixet (The Secret Life of Words, My Life Without Me) negotiates this risk because of some brilliant performances, an intelligent script and masterly direction.
Incidentally, an elegy is supposed to be a sombre work of art inspired by death. Once you’ve seen this movie, you can decide for yourself whether this Elegy is inspired by the death that actually occurs in the film or whether it is about an impending death or the idea of death. Or not.
David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley) is an aging college professor and culture-vulture with a long-standing aversion to commitment in relationships. Estranged from his wife, he has maintained a 20-year, now-and-then liaison with his sex buddy, Carolyn, who is played by the excellent Patricia Clarkson (Lars and the Real Girl, The Station Agent). Carolyn knows David (and herself) well, and demands relatively little from their relationship – just that David maintain an illusion of fidelity to her. She is, as she says, “one in a million”.
David, described by his embittered son Kenny (Peter Sarsgaard) as a “serial tomcat”, has a reputation as a seducer of female students. When Consuela Castillo (Penelope Cruz) comes into his practical criticism class, her transcendent beauty sparks his interest immediately. She is supposed to be just another conquest for David so he is rocked to the core by the relationship that develops between them. He becomes obsessed, jealous and vulnerable – the script even contains a nod of the head to Othello. He is convinced that it is only a matter of time before he loses Consuela to a younger man and this certainty makes him behave like a frightened schoolboy and, ironically, makes the end of their relationship much more likely. Kingsley excels here. He is utterly convincing as the urbane and suave David but his performance becomes searing as David descends into fear, defencelessness and transparent dishonesty.
Consuela is less troubled about the 30-year difference in their ages than David is. Eventually she succumbs to the wiles of her professor and becomes in his eyes “a real work of art”. This comment occurs in one of the bedroom scenes and David presumably means it as a compliment. It is, however, an echo of an earlier discussion he has had about how impossible it is to truly own art, so it conveys a sense of doom.
There is a danger, then, that Consuela might become simply a beautiful object to David. Cruz’ subtle, layered and convincing portrayal of Consuela ensures that this does not happen. She gives Consuela a mixture of vulnerability and integrity that makes her appear to be, at times, much more emotionally mature than her old boyfriend.
David’s friend and sounding board, the randy Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet George O’Hearn (Dennis Hopper), asserts that “beautiful women are invisible” because their external attractiveness masks their true nature. Cruz herself had to overcome this challenge in creating the role of Consuela. David is unsurprisingly entranced by Consuela’s physical attributes and Cruz could easily have played the part of the “eye candy” and left it at that. She doesn’t, and beautiful women everywhere should be grateful to her. Is it because director Croixet is a woman that the movie manages to pay sumptuous attention to Cruz’s beauty without stooping to salaciousness?
Elegy is based on Philip Roth’s novel, The Dying Animal. Nicholas Meyer has written an intelligent screenplay that, for almost the whole film, engaged and convinced me. In the last half-hour, however, some events felt contrived and I felt let down. It may be that Roth’s original novel was not meant to be adapted for the screen because of limitations of its own – critics seem to agree that it is not his best work. That doesn’t matter - most of us will see the movie without ever reading the novel, so it has to stand or fall on its worth as a cinematic experience.
Elegy is very sensitively directed, well cast and has a lovely soundtrack. It is beautifully shot – the treatment of light and dark, especially in the sequences inside David’s apartment, is simply superb. So, it’s a stimulating and ultimately rewarding cinematic experience. Grubby old blokes may need to look elsewhere for their fantasies.
Neil Wilson
elegy (M). The next screening at The Village Theatre is on Saturday 22 August at 7.30pm.
