It's beautiful, but nobody involved was ever sure what the movie was actually about, or why they were making it.
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08/08/08
Elegy (2008)
74
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:112
Fresh:83
Rotten:29
Average Rating:6.7/10
Consensus: An intelligent, adult, and provocative Philip Roth adaptation that features classy performances, Elegy is never quite the sum of its parts.
Australian Theatrical Release:
Apr 9, 2009 Wide
US Box Office: $3,456,676
Synopsis: Like director Isabel Coixet's previous film MY LIFE WITHOUT ME, ELEGY is consumed by the ideas of love and mortality. But while that film focused on a young protagonist, the hero of this drama is... [More]
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Patricia Clarkson
Director: Isabel Coixet
Reviews for Elegy
Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz, never better.
08/08/08
A spare, meditative and melancholy film.
08/08/08
Top CriticThis melancholy mediation on aging and desire hangs on an exquisite performance from Penelope Cruz as a young woman who becomes the love object of a man twice her age. It's easily her finest English-language performance to date.
08/08/08
Spanish director Isabel Coixet displays what is almost reverence for the material. You can imagine her whispering on the set. She brings out the absolute best in her top-notch cast.
08/08/08
A nicely shot, slow-moving drama that takes its time to really let the audience get to know its characters.
08/08/08
As an acting showcase that builds to some unexpectedly moving moments, Elegy has much to recommend it.
08/08/08
A windbaggy film of Phillip Roth's novella The Dying Animal.
08/08/08
The movie dog days of August can include dramas, as this abashed adaptation of a Philip Roth novel shows.
08/08/08
Elegy seems to mourn for the wrong things, making its self-examining characters seem merely narcissistic and more than a little pathetic.
08/08/08
Top CriticBen Kingsley and Penelope Cruz continue to do their best to offset the summer's more infantile impulses in this fine adaptation of Philip Roth's novel.
08/08/08
While this may seem like an apologia for randy older men, it doesn't come off that way, and Cruz gives her best performance to date.
08/08/08
In the early scenes of the two lovers discovering each other's bodies and personal quirks, Coixet coaxes work from Kingsley and Cruz that is remarkably intimate.
08/08/08
An elegant meditation on lust and mortality.
08/08/08
It may be ironic that it took a female director (and a foreign one) to turn Philip Roth's novella into a melancholy probing of the sexual anxieties of an aging professor, splendidly interpreted by Ben Kingsley in a sharp, fearless performance.
08/08/08
A slow, uninteresting depiction of a selfish fool who possibly too-late realizes that he's grown old before he's actually grown up.
08/08/08
This beautifully directed film is packed with serious, provocative themes. But a mopey tone and some wobbly casting undermines the otherwise terrific acting.
08/08/08
Elegy is a gorgeously shot, classy drama with a terrific supporting cast, but Kingsley's curiously hollow performance means it doesn't quite deliver the required emotional punch.
08/08/08
Whether in trying to reach out for a wider audience here she has diluted her talent in favour of a richer, more stylish surface is a matter for argument. The smoother this kind of film gets, the easier it is to think it.
08/08/08
Coixet has done more than honour it; she has found a tenderness and vulnerability that were so deeply buried as to be almost undetectable.
08/08/08
Latest News for Elegy
March 16, 2009:
RT on DVD: Exclusive Clips From Twilight, Punisher: War Zone
It's a big week for fans of Stephenie Meyer's vampire romance Twilight, which was adapted into the biggest movie phenomenon of 2008 and is headed to shelves this Saturday, March... More...
August 22, 2008:
Penelope's gullible college coed swoons when the lecherous lecturer played by Ben Kingsley confesses that he's fallen in love with her breasts. You've come a long way backwards, baby. Penelope Cruz Boob Fetish Blues. 
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July 02, 2008:
Penelope's gullible college coed swoons when the lecherous lecturer played by Ben Kingsley confesses that he's fallen in love with her breasts. You've come a long way backwards, baby. Penelope Cruz Boob Fetish Blues.
More...
June 23, 2008:
Ben Kingsley Is Everywhere
Think you're seeing Ben Kingsley everywhere lately? It's no optical illusion -- his roles in The Love Guru and The Wackness are just two of the many projects he's got lined up... More...
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