Elegy

I was a slug today--slept late, read back issues of The New Yorker on a chaise lounge in the back yard, had drinks and snacks with Wini and Mike, and then we went off to see "Elegy," the film with Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz, based on the Philip Roth novel "Dying Animal."

I don't like Philip Roth ordinarily; I find him self-centered, misogynistic, and pitiful. In high school our English teacher had us read "Goodbye Columbus," and that was it for me. I hated his portrayal of women, all materialistic and vain. By mistake I read "The Human Stain" a few years back, which is a bitter novel. Roth somehow wanted to get back at women and African Americans in 300 pages. Our book club cheered when he didn't get the Nobel Prize for literature this year; it went to Doris Lessing instead. So I didn't go into the theater with great expectations other than seeing Ben Kingsley.

He might be the greatest living English-speaking actor around. I had just seen him in "Wackness," which I highly recommend as a coming-of-age film that rivals "Catcher in the Rye" as the modern white teenage angst story.

Kingsley added his touch to this film, a layered and crafted story about a man, David Kepesh, who is much like the way I imagine Roth to be: self-centered, misogynistic, and pitiful. David's professional life is dedicated to understanding art, literature, music, and beauty. His own life is without any real emotional connection: he has had an on-going monthly liaison over twenty years with Caroline, a business woman who is too busy to have any real emotional connection. He teaches and has a weekly radio show. Much of his life is explained during frequent conversations he has with George, a poet friend, played by an aging Dennis Hopper, who like David has numerous women for sport. There is genuine friendship between the men, although competition and envy, too.

Because the sexual harassment warning is posted just outside his office at Columbia University, David has learned to wait to choose his next woman until after grades are released. David has a semester-end party to which he invites his students. He waits until then to swoop down on Consuela, played by Penelope Cruz. She is beautiful and charming, and keeps a portion of herself away from him. He becomes obsessed with her beauty, obsessed with her. It is far too self-centered on his part to be called love.

The script creates parallels between David and people who buy original art, believing that they own it. Instead the art owns them, and David cannot quite experience Consuela, can't quite love her, or allow her to love him.

The film is touching and real because of the amazing performances by both Kingsley and Cruz. This is a mature portrayal of aging men who are losing their sense of virility and purpose. It isn't pretty. David is not admirable. Nor is George. But the film is engaging and well worth a viewing.