ELEGY (2008)

The Movie opens with a beautiful line quoted by Ben Kingsley which was the theme of the movie- “I think it was Bette Davis who said that Old age is not for thesis. But it was Tolstoy who said that the biggest surprise in man’s life is the old age.” And mind it these beautiful words continued throughout the movie as Ben Kingsley narrates the story. I can’t resist myself to quote few more lines and here are few of them.
# “Get to stop about growing old. Worry about growing up.”
# “When you make love to a woman you take revenge for all the things she defeated you in life.”
# “We are so dazzled by the outside that we never make it inside.”

The movie is based on the novel ‘The Dying Animal’ by Philip Roth & meticulously directed by Isabel Coixet. Kingsley played charismatic Popular Professor David surrounded by female students never lets any woman get too close. But things change when gorgeous looking Consuela (Penelope Cruz) entered his classroom. Her beauty captivates & unsettles him & his protective veneer dissolves as he considered her body a perfect piece of art. Gradually she becomes more than an object of her desire. She has a strong sense of herself & emotional intensity that challenged his perceptions & she becomes her obsession. Ultimately old age grown up mentality struck him and he tries to get normal without her. Two years later she comes back to his life with something unimaginable.
There are very few heroines in Hollywood who looks so beautiful in on & off the clothes and Penelope Cruz is one of them. There are so many nude intimate moments in the film but she looks pure aesthetic than anything else. And it’s not all about beauty, she played really an intelligent girl character here and believe me she never act so intense as this one. For Ben Kingsley its Oscar worthy performance perfectly tailor made for him at this age. Dennis Hopper played the role of his pragmatic and mature close friend.
Well the film become over sentimental as it progressed but I must appreciate that it is the beauty of this kind of the film. We have to shed certain programmed bias approach when we are watching this kind of cinema- Real, Mature and grown up.
AN EXTRAORDINARY BRILLIANT FILM.

Ratings- 9/10