ELEGY
/
2008
DIRECTOR: ISABEL COIXET
CINEMATOGRAPHER: JEAN-CLAUDE LARRIEU
WRITER: NICHOLAS MEYER (screenplay)/ PHILIP ROTH (novel)
BUDGET: $13,000,000
GROSS: $14,894,347 (worldwide)
Elegy: a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, esp. a funeral song or a lament for the dead.
The first film I saw from director Isabel Coixet was The Secret Life of Words. And that was by accident (my PVR recorded the wrong movie). However, it was a happy accident because I really liked that film. So, back in 2008 when Elegy was released I made a point of going to see it in the theatre. And, I was very happy I did.
On the surface the film might sound like another old-professor-young-student movie, and I guess technically it is: Ben Kingsley plays the professor and Penelope Cruz plays the student. However, the story isn't being used as a hook to get into some kind of stupid thriller or melodrama. As with The Secret Life Of Words, Elegy is about the characters and the themes of love, age and death.
The film is a drama, and also similarly to her previous work, it plays beautifully with silence. Yes, there’s a score and plenty of music, but there are these moments of silence that Coixet provides us that stand out beautifully. She is also working with the same director of photography. And while both films are well shot productions they do vary in their visual tone and movement dictated by the story and characters.
Kingsley had a good year back in 2008. In another good movie released that year, The Wackness, Kingsley also plays an aging man with a high sex drive for younger women coming to terms with how he has lived his life and the fact that he’s getting older. It might sound like type casting, but these are two very different characters and Kingsley is again fantastic.
The film is based on a novel by Philip Roth, The Dying Animal. having not read the book I can’t speak to how the film compares. But from someone who is not familiar with the novel, this is an easy recommendation.