Elegy (2008)

Cultural critic David Kepesh finds his life, which he indicates is a state of "emancipated manhood", thrown into tragic disarray by Consuela Castillo, a well-mannered student who awakens a sense of sexual possessiveness in her teacher.

Director:

Isabel Coixet

Writers:

Nicholas Meyer (screenplay), Philip Roth (novel)

Stars:

Ben Kingsley, Penélope Cruz, Patricia Clarkson

3 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Penélope Cruz	...	Consuela Castillo
Ben Kingsley	...	David Kepesh
Dennis Hopper	...	George O'Hearn
Patricia Clarkson	...	Carolyn
Peter Sarsgaard	...	Kenny Kepesh
Debbie Harry	...	Amy O'Hearn (as Deborah Harry)
Charlie Rose	...	Charlie Rose
Antonio Cupo	...	Younger Man
Michelle Harrison	...	2nd Student
Sonja Bennett	...	Beth
Emily Holmes	...	1st Student
Chelah Horsdal	...	Susan Reese
Marci T. House	...	Administration Nurse
Alessandro Juliani	...	Actor #3 in Play
Tiffany Lyndall-Knight	...	Actor #2 in Play

Storyline

David Kepesh is growing old. He's a professor of literature, a student of American hedonism, and an amateur musician and photographer. When he finds a student attractive, Consuela, a 24-year-old Cuban, he sets out to seduce her. Along the way, he swims in deeper feelings, maybe he's drowning. She presses him to sort out what he wants from her, and a relationship develops. They talk of traveling. He confides in his friend, George, a poet long-married, who advises David to grow up and grow old. She invites him to meet her family. His own son, from a long-ended marriage, confronts him. Is the elegy for lost relationships, lost possibilities, beauty and time passing, or failure of nerve?

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Plot Keywords:

older man younger woman relationship | teacher | sex | sexual attraction | breasts | 

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Taglines:

Love Has No Boundaries

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for sexuality, nudity and language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [Japan]

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

29 August 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

Elegy: Dying Animal

Filming Locations:

British Columbia, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$13,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$104,168, 10 August 2008, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$3,581,642

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$14,894,347

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lakeshore Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

112 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

When Consuela is napping on the beach, the book beside her is Selected Essays by John Berger.

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Goofs

At one point Ben Kingsley says to Penelope Cruz, "The beast with two backs. Where's that from?" She answers Shakespeare and he agrees that it's from Othello. The fact is that Shakespeare borrowed it from the original author, Francois Rabelais. The phrase appears in French as "la bête à deux dos" in Gargantua and Pantagruel, 1532.

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Quotes

George O'Hearn: Beautiful women are invisible.
David Kepesh: Invisible? What the hell does that mean? Invisible? They jump out at you. A beautiful woman, she stands out. She stands apart. You can't miss her.
George O'Hearn: But we never actually see the person. We see the beautiful shell. We're blocked by the beauty barrier. Yeah, we're so dazzled by the outside that we never make it inside.

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Connections

Featured in At the Movies: The Pineapple Express/Elegy/The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2/Vicky Christina Barcelona/Hell Ride (2008)

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Soundtracks

Gnossiennes No. 3
Written by Erik Satie
Performed by David Troy Francis

User Reviews

Ben Kingsley gives another Oscar-worthy performance

'Elegy' is a small, yet powerful film for adults. Focusing on a relationship between a well-respected college professor (Ben Kingsley) and his former student (Penelope Cruz), 'Elegy' shows the audience a multi-faceted, complex man whose past experiences with women and his own family have dampered his ability to participate in a healthy relationship with a woman he is truly infatuated with.

The film was carried by a masterful performance by Kingsley, who successfully portrayed Kepesh as a complex man with complex relationships. His desire and lust for Cruz was so emotional and real that I believed it for every second until the very end. Kingsley was able to spark empathy with the audience as a victim of numerous losses in his life: his wife, family, son, best friend, love interest (Cruz), and most importantly, it was his loss of youth that made Kepesh the man he is when we first meet him.

I truly believed his internal struggles with adapting to life as a man romantically involved with a much younger woman (30 years his junior).