As I watched this movie I was convinced that it must be a literary
adaptation. It has all the necessary components. It floats through the
rarefied atmosphere of literary criticism and artistic theory. Scenes are
backed by a classical piano score which is simple, elegant, and
melancholy. It ends with the right amount of ambiguity to invite the viewer
to construct an appropriate ending, and to debate that theoretical
outcome with a companion. It is narrated with refined phrases and pithy
observations.
What surprised me is that it is adapted from a novel by Philip Roth.
Not that Roth is incapable of refinement. He's a brilliant guy whose work
is multi-faceted. But one does not normally associate him with the kind of
meditative politesse that characterizes this film. His work has a kind of
primal, brutal, sexual energy that drives all of his literary alter egos into
impolite, obsessive rhapsodies about lust. I would never have recognized
Elegy as a Roth adaptation.
I haven't read the source novel, called "The Dying Animal" (as I just
found out), but I assume it was too complex and included too much first
person narration to allow for a simple, literal adaptation, and that the
screenwriter needed to find a way to focus it. As you know, many different kinds of movies can come out of a complex book,
depending on the screenwriter's focus.
Consider, for example, the two adaptations of Lolita: Kubrick's snarky
wallow in the book's sleazy comedy and glorious wordplay; and Adrian
Lyne's somber, sad portrayal of a man making an ill-fated and
inappropriate attempt to recreate something beautiful and
poignant that he lost in childhood and could never regain. There's one
very sad movie and one very funny one there, yet both of them are quite accurate
reflections of different facets of an opalescent book.
I guess what I'm saying here is that there are probably many different
ways one might interpret Roth's book. In this case, the screenwriter and
the director seem to have created the Masterpiece Theater version of the
book by downplaying Roth's carnality and earthy language while elevating the role of his
obsessive self-analysis.
Ben Kingsley plays an elderly literature professor who is basically
retired except for a prestigious sinecure which requires him to teach only
one class per year. He uses his minor fame and major charm to seduce one
co-ed per year, and has set his current sights on a Cuban-American beauty
named Consuela. After dazzling her with his depth, which is the
orchestration he uses to waltz her into bed, he finds that his
relationship with her is not like those with his previous conquests. There
is much more than mere lust. At his advanced age, after having
created a personal philosophy that rejects the concept of romantic love,
he finds himself enslaved to it. Then he must, as must we all, revise his
philosophy to conform to his circumstances. This proves difficult. He is
inept at love. He is jealous, possessive, and uneasy. Although it is clear
that he and Consuela love one another, the professor cannot bring himself
to meet her family, and she finally drops him from her life after he
offers some particularly flimsy lies about why he missed a family event he
had promised to attend. As is his wont, he deals with his pain by adjusting
his personal philosophy yet again, accommodating his circumstances to the
belief that the young woman was bound to drop him sooner or later anyway,
because she's bound to begin to notice the inherent liabilities in loving
a man 35 years older than she. We feel some empathy for the lonely old man
he is becoming, but no sympathy, for we can see that he has created his own
loneliness.
That part of the film moves with a deliberate pace and a lifelessness
that seems totally uncharacteristic of Philip Roth, but the story takes a
final twist in which the professor strives to redeem himself. Although
overwhelmed by his sense of loss, he honors his promise not to call
Consuela again, and he offers himself fully when she calls him some years
later with an urgent message. Through a too-convenient plot twist, Consuela becomes older than
he, in the sense of closer to death, and this seems to be the shock he
needs to shake off his solipsism and attempt a true intimate relationship
in which he can sometimes place another's needs above his own. He seems to
be succeeding as the film ends. Maybe.
The film offers some interesting insights along the way. Roth is an
acute observer, and some of his observations are held intact here, either
in the film's narration, or in some dialogues between the Kingsley
character and another elderly scholar, a poet with a Pulitzer, as played
very effectively by Dennis Hopper. Many insights rang true with me. The
professor notes, for example, that unfamiliar 20-year-old women look just
as appealing when a man is 60 as when he is 20, while unfamiliar
60-year-old women look just as old as they ever did, making it difficult
to reconcile an old man's desires with his capabilities. This fact of life
can be a source of both tragedy and comedy.
Dennis Hopper was a revelation in his secondary role. He has spent his
entire career playing movie archetypes rather than real human beings, and
it surprised me to see just how good he was at simple, credible situations
and sensible, intelligent conversations. He had no trouble convincing me
that he was an esteemed poet. He should have shown this side of himself
years earlier, or perhaps I should say that somebody should have given him
a chance to show this side. I liked Hopper's scenes immensely, but he
didn't really get much of a chance to develop the character. In fact, the
character was really just an exposition device, used to give Kingsley
somebody to talk to so he wouldn't always be narrating in voice-over.
Other characters remained similarly undefined, like the professor's son,
whose life must have supplied an important sub-plot in the book, but who
seems like a trivial, virtually unnecessary character in the movie.
Overall, the movie didn't really work for me. I found it
oh-too-precious, too slow, and utterly lacking in both passion and warmth. Many critics disagreed
strongly. Roger Ebert gave it three stars. James Berardinelli topped that
at three and a half, and Owen Gleiberman of EW dished out the full
four-star monty, saying "There's a poetic irony to the idea that it took a
female filmmaker to finally do justice to Philip Roth on screen." I don't
agree with what he's saying there. At least I don't think I do. If he
means it took a woman to make the first good movie based on a Roth book, I
have to concede that it is a legitimate argument, but
if he means the woman captured the true essence of Roth ... well, I think
I've already expressed my feelings about that. I don't think any Roth book
has been described as "precious, slow, and lacking in passion."
Elegy is like one of those "prestige dramas" that inevitably get
rushed to the theaters in the last week of December to establish Oscar
eligibility. By their inherent nature, prestige dramas have a tiny
audience. In this case, the audience consists of those who really
have a need to wallow in melancholy reflections about aging and dying, and
the differences between those two ominous participles. If you do feel that need, the film offers a
somber, thoughtful, articulate overview of those topics.
