Movie Review: Elegy

By Priscilla Beth Baker
November 17, 2008

"The biggest surprise in a man's life is old age." 

Tolstoy said this long ago and it is with this opening-credits phrase, and this sentiment, that Elegy beings its emotionally-wrought journey.  Based on Philip Roth's novel The Dying Animal, Elegy, on the surface, seems to be a rehashing of the "older man falls for younger beauty" storyline, but it surpasses that cliché intellectually, spiritually and emotionally.

David Kapesh (Ben Kingsley) is an art history professor, and an inspiring one, who lectures on the relationship between art and the observer.  Only at the end of each semester does he invite his students over so he can have his protégés around him in his ordered, sophisticated life, where, ironically, all is appearance and lacks the depth of the art he studies and teaches.

Having left his wife and son 30 years ago, Kapesh has filled his romantic life with a series of meaningless flings and one long-standing relationship of one-nighters with Caroline (Patricia Clarkson), a businesswoman who is, conveniently, rarely in town.

Kapesh falls for one of his young graduate students, Consuela Castillo (Penélope Cruz) and, at its inception, the relationship seems to be just a professor's shallow conquest of a student.  But what's so different about this story is watching the trajectory of their story from that point. 

The accomplished and worldly professor, despite himself, falls into a well of jealousy and insecurity, and undermines the real love he has found at every turn.  Acting like a foolish teenager, and knowing how ridiculous he is being, David simply cannot help himself and cannot let himself believe that this "work of art" could ever love him for long.

His insecurities are compounded by his poet best friend, and the only person he has truly committed to in his life, George O'Hearn (Dennis Hopper in a nuanced performance). George's coffee shop anecdotes about his own infidelities and advice to "dump her because she's going to leave you," only serve to make David even more paranoid. 

You don't necessarily like David, but Kingsley's portrayal of him makes him a fascinating character to watch.  He is seemingly determined to ruin this relationship and self-destruct, while Consuela tries desperately to keep them together. 

"Maybe," David says, when asked to meet Consuela's family yet again after months of her requests.  "Maybe is your favorite word," she says, and it is here that we can sense the palpable shift in our perception of this relationship. 

Up until this point, we wonder if she will leave him for someone younger or if she is even in love with him at all.  But her pleading, "What am I to you?" and Cruz's eyes tell us the real story:  she has no intention of leaving him.  It is he who cannot commit, not because he doesn't love her, but because he is afraid she will eventually leave him. 

He seems determined to relegate her feelings to something shallow and fleeting: "She'll remember me as the old guy who gave her some culture along the way."  It is his perverse fears that ruin them, not her youth.  He is "afraid to ask who I was to her."

The ending reeks of a Lifetime made-for-tv movie, but you forgive it, for it ultimately transcends that predictable format. Kingsley and Cruz refuse to let the film spiral out of control emotionally. 

Elegy, as its name suggests, is a mournful poem.  David mourns the loss of his youth because "in my head, nothing has changed," and the loss of Consuela before she ever even leaves him. 

The film asks us to evaluate how we view our life experiences at the time that they occur and in retrospect, and how age shapes who we are and how we look at the world at any given time.  "Will the book be different if we read it 10 years later?" David asks Consuela, and it is through this lens that we are left to ponder our own versions of lost chances and wasted time.       

Running Time: 1 hour 48 minutes
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Penélope Cruz, Patricia Clarkson, Dennis Hopper
Director:  Isabel Coixet