2/5 Sterile and pointless
  by Peter Baklava (Charles City, Iowa)
Ben Kingsley, as aging English Professor David Kepesh, acts his way somnabulantly through this unremarkable adaptation of Philip Roth's novella.

It's easy to detect when a movie is aimed deliberately at the "National Public Radio" crowd. Scenes in this movie repeatedly visit squash courts and an eatery advertising "Gelato and Pastries". Musical selections crop up with deadly predictability--most prominently, some selections from French composer Erik Satie. Okay, we get it, this character is an intellectual and he's well-versed in the schtick that comes with it, down to the raging self-doubts. If it sounds tiresome---yes, it definitely is.

It's up to Kingsley to carry the movie, and his performance is flat. There are so many shots of the back of his bald pate that maybe Patrick Stewart could have been used as a stand-in--or Donald Pleasance, were he still alive. Penelope Cruz seems miscast for the most part, though her character becomes more striking after she disappears for a while and returns with a short, Nastassia Kinski-esque hairdo.

But, the surest sign that this movie fails is the fact that the scenes intended to be the most poignant also are faintly ridiculous, as when Dennis Hopper's character dies, and when Cruz poses for a "pre-mastectomy portrait". I blame this on the director, who failed to elicit more than rote performances from a fine group of actors, and failed to enliven a predictable script.

4/5 A Passionate and Torrid Love Affair
  by Bonnie Brody (Fairbanks, Alaska)
Elegy is a slow-paced, beautifully photographed movie based on 'The Dying Animal' by Philip Roth. It is about one of Roth's prominent characters who appears in many of his novels, David Kepesh. In this movie, Kepesh, played by Ben Kingsley, has left his wife many years ago and has been involved in a regular affair-without-questions with Patricia Clarkson. He is a professor at a New York university where he sees and is smitten by a beautiful young woman, Penelope Cruz. They begin a torrid and passionate love affair but Kepesh is always afraid of the ultimate commitment. He has a son who calls him at odd hours of the day and night, deriding Kepesh for his life problems which he blames on Kepesh's abandoning his family years earlier. Kepesh is fearful that his May-December romance with Penelope Cruz will not work out so he is self-defeating in his interactions with her.

Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz do an excellent job and the pieces of the plot fall together very nicely as the movie progresses. The character development of both Cruz and Kingsley is very well done.

5/5 Memorable performances by lead actors
  by Stephen Borrow (Sydney Australia)
Elegy: mournful, melancholy or plaintiff poem, especially a funeral song or lament for the dead. This superb production is as close to perfection as a film can get. The editing, cinematography, and scriptwriting all exhibit supreme levels of excellence, but it is the acting of Penelope Cruz, Sir Ben Kingsley and Dennis Hopper under the guidance of Spanish director, Isabel Coixet, that ensure the enduring importance of this film. It begins with Sir Ben's character, David Kepesh, a celebrity social historian, being interviewed by the acclaimed Charlie Rose about the trumping of sexual freedom in the early days of the American colony. That tells us right off the bat where his interests lie. He is a man deeply committed to the aesthetic, who has made a habit of seducing beautiful young coeds when the opportunity presents itself, and falling back on his rainy day woman, played by Patricia Clarkson. It is, he confesses later, a form of arrested development, where he and the character played by Denis Hopper lived the whole of their lives as teenagers, incapable of receiving real love when it presented itself. Then enter Penelope Cruz in the guise of Cuban student, Consuela Castillo, a beautiful, exotic, and intelligent woman 30 years his junior, who falls for him. It's the real thing for him, too, but his inability to commit, exacerbated by his fear of aging and an expectation that she will eventually drop him for a handsome, potent young man of her vintage just about wrecks it for him. The dénouement is very moving. I won't spoil it, but make sure you have a box of tissues at the ready. The pace and intelligence of this film reminded me of Canadian director Denys Arcand's work ("Invasion of the Barbarians"). This must surely be Penelope Cruz's greatest film performance, and Sir Ben? Well, what can one say that hasn't been said about this extraordinary actor? The intimate moments between he and Penelope Cruz are truly memorable. No it is not cliched: it explores enduring themes about human interactions from a fresh perspective.

4/5 Poignant
  by Michael
Elegy with Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz in leading roles - fine performances by Dennis Hopper and Patrica Clarkson as well.

Some reviewers disliked the film calling it trite, as the erudite but emotionally impotent David Kepesh (Kingsley) with his life long committment to hedonism (particularly womanizing) leaves some unsympathic to his plight and the movie in general.
Masterfully portraying the cold hearted and ultimately frightened Kepesh (wanting to end the best relationship of his life before his girlfriend ends it first, or so he tells himself) the film shows a man of culture, wit and fine intellectual prowess lay bare his world as friends die and the shallow nest of his life is flayed open.

Not a happy feel good movie, and certainly not a movie for folks who like formula characters who are politically correct at every turn, but this poignant, poetic film with hauntingly beautiful music has much to offer discerning tastes.

Unflinchingly it reminds us of the rentless movement of time, of life's unpredictable geography, of choices made, and of those simple moments of redemption.
I hope we'll see more work by this director.


5/5 A lesson of life for a lonely wolf!
  by Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela)
An erudite professor (Ben Kingsley), admired due its vast culture and broad knowledge, lives an entangled private life. Divorced, his affective relation with his son is a real mess. And his two only tie with the real world are -on one hand- a sensitive poet (Dennis Hopper), who is an epitome of his own shadow; he questions him but reflects many of his convictions when he was young ; the other bound is an old pupil (Patrice Clarkson). His house is an extension of himself (as it must be)a museum in miniature. Memories, antiques treasures, invaluable books and His powerful intelligence has not grown old, but his youth is missed.

Among this universe of contradictions, he meets a warm relationship with an alluring young student (Penelope Cruz). And so, the normal admiration she feels for him and the ardent passion for being loved are blended. The chosen music might not better appropriate. The initial encounter is supported by the meditative variation which belongs to the "Diabelli variations". And the erotic sequences are beautifully leaned by the incorporeal lyricism of the Gymnopedies of Eric Satie ( So, Isabel Croixent paid her personal tribute to the famous film "The immortal story" with Orson Welles and Jeanne Moreau, from 1968).

On the other hand, one cannot forget the visible traces of "The blue Angel" (starred by Emil Jennings and Marlene Dietrich and directed by Joseph von Sternberg). The tantalizing visions and the fear to be forgotten and neglected by this beautiful girl in a recent future due he is older than her by thirty years molds the expected results. He wishes total isolation and refuses to meet her parents in order to avoid acidic comments.

But this paradisiacal state won't be for so long. And then a sudden fact leads to a fracture in this relationship.

Two years after, she will contact him at the eve of a new year. And she will ask him a favor: to photograph her (like Goya painted the dressed and undressed Maja ). That is another visual clue. The body language of Penelope suggesting the same position the Maja, in order to preserve her body from the expected corruption produced by the years.

The cast is splendid. Kingsley is fabulous (as always), Penelope Cruz makes her best acting since her unforgettable performance in "Volver" . Hopper demonstrates his multiple and multidimensional skills as actor and Patrice Clarkson is extraordinary through her brief but decisive participation in the film.

A thoughtful and mature film that will invite us to think and besides to understand the real sense of the human condition. A full rounded artistic movie, which is by itself a true finding in those times.