Penélope Cruz is Consuela, a Cuban-American student in New
York, bangs framing her face with a deceptive innocence. Ben Kingsley
is Kepesh: narrator, writer and Consula’s English lit prof, 30-plus
years her senior. While fretting about his age and virility he seduces
her, becoming obsessed by, and possessive of, her beauty and body. As
his Pulitzer-winning, cliche-spouting buddy Dennis Hopper tells him,
“You need to stop worrying about growing old and start worrying about
growing up.” Drawing a portrait of an anxious intellectual, Kingsley is
typically sterling, but the story’s revelations on the subject of the
non-committal male are simplistic—he’s an emotional adolescent who
feels deep remorse and is pathologically unable to change. Oh, really?
Adapted from The Dying Animal by Philip Roth, a writer whose
novels have yet to be made into an entirely satisfying film,
Elegy looks great, sounds good and is full of solid
performances, including ones from Patricia Clarkson and Peter
Sarsgaard. As Consuela, Cruz does some of her best English language
work. A real dramatic turn, when it comes late in the running, makes
for an involving final act. But it doesn’t quite work. The whole
endeavour never seems much more than a balm to assuage Roth’s aging
horndog guilt.
This article appears in Apr 9-15, 2009.