It’s kind of a shame we dinn’t really have time to blog about “Elegy,” starring Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz as May December lovers in much advance notice.
It’s a beautiful film, gracefully handled, elegantly shot with tons of observant compassion. It’s also noteworthy cause it’s a male-centric Phillip Roth adaptation (which Roth ones aren’t though), but it’s directed by a woman; Spanish director Isabel Coixet (she did a vignette in “Paris Je T’aime”). As we said in our Twitter mini review, the films examination of fear, aging and loss was thoughtfully crafted and left us completely unraveled in moments. Patricia Clarkson, Deborah Harry and Dennis Hopper who’s amazing as Kingsley tomcatting best friend. It’s one of the best performances we’ve seen from him in a long time. Kingsley is amazing and riveting as usual and Penelope Cruz wasn’t annoying for one second in the film (and JoBlo types should note, she’s very naked in the film too). Someone told us afterwards, they thought the film was slow, but that’s missing the point of its measured pace; perfectly apropos to the subject matter. We really loved this film and it made a lasting, personal impression. Go see it. It comes out this weekend (August 8) in presumably smaller, indie, art-house release. It has a very lovely and refined soundtrack too that includes tracks by Erik Satie, Chet Baker and French experimental electro-acoustic artist Colleen.
