ELEGY ssss Directed by Isabel Coixet adapted by Nicholas Meyer from a novella by Philip Roth
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Elegy, adapted from Philip Roth’s novella The Dying Animal, gives Ben Kingsley one of the best roles of his career: David Kepesh, a Columbia University professor and cultural commentator who, appearing on Charlie Rose’s late-night talk show in the opening scene, excoriates the Puritans for crippling American mores and expresses regret that he ever wed. Having left his wife and child decades earlier to embrace the sexual revolution and countless women, he now endures the bitterness of his self-righteous son (a funny Peter Sarsgaard), a married doctor embroiled in an adulterous affair. Dennis Hopper steals scenes as Kepesh’s comrade-in-arms in the gender wars, and Clarkson is right on the money as Kepesh’s longtime sex partner, whose two failed marriages make her more of a soul mate than the professor realizes.
Kepesh finds his orderly life upended when he enters into a highly eroticized relationship with Cuban beauty Consuela Castillo (Cruz), a former student more than 30 years his junior. He loves Consuela’s body, compares her to a Goya masterpiece, and photographs her during an idyll on the beach. But he’s taken aback by the depth of his passion: he’s fearful of losing her to a younger man and appalled by his own possessiveness. Cinematographer Jean-Claude Larrieu heightens the emotional intensity by shooting the lovers in close-up with a handheld camera, and Cruz and Kingsley’s faces glow in the darkness of Kepesh’s apartment.
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