Thursday, September 4, 2008

Elegy

Movie name: Elegy
Year of release: 2008
Director: Isabel Coixet
Stars: Penélope Cruz, Ben Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson, Peter Sarsgaard, Deborah Harry, Dennis Hopper
Genre: Drama, Romance
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7

Synopsis:Following "My Life Without Me" and "The Secret Life of Words", Isabel Coixet continues to examine relationships between men and women, and how both are haunted by their own ghosts and expectations towards each other. "Elegy" adapts a novel from Philip Roth, whose work has already been adapted by Robert Benton in "The Human Stain", with Nicole Kidman, Anthony Hopkins, Gary Sinise and Ed Harris. Both films have a somewhat common thread - an older sophisticated man (in both cases, a university teacher), falls in love with a younger woman, who becomes an obsession and object of sexual desire. Penélope Cruz plays Consuela, a beautiful young woman who enrolls in the class of professor David Kepesh, a divorced man way in his middle age, that never managed to sustain a relationship with a woman ( this is part of the problem for his troublesome relationship with his son ). The relationship he currently holds with Carolyn is one of sex and little else. They don't expect much of each other, something that changes once Consuela becomes part of David's life. David becomes possessive of Consuela, devoting a love unlike he's never experienced and that will change his life. This film is the journey of a man coming to terms with the fact that love comes and seizes you, no matter what point or stage in your life you are. David Kepesh always avoided serious relationships with women, preferring sexual encounters. Consuela on the other hand, sees love and life as the same, devoting herself to both with all that she has and is. The film succeeds in portraying the way age and mortality hovers around the characters. All the actors excel in their performances, especially Ben Kingsley, Penélope Cruz and Patricia Clarkson. The vulnerability they all show makes them more than just figments of someone's narration - it makes them eminently real. Worth watching!

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