Elegy (review)

Reviews Philip Roth Studies 287 When I first saw Elegy (2008) two years ago in a London movie house on Shaftesbury Avenue, I was impressed. It seemed to be one of these rare instances when the film turned out better than the novel. Seeing it again on DVD after rereading The Dying Animal (2001), I remain impressed for a number of additional reasons. For one thing, it is beautifully cast and filmed. Ben Kingsley as David Kepesh still seemed to me a more sympathetic character than the aging roué Roth portrays, and Penelope Cruz as Consuela is a perfect choice for the role. She is stunning in every respect, and her Spanish accent, appropriate to her character as a native Cuban, only adds to her charm. Dennis Hopper as Kepesh’s old friend and confidante, the poet George O’Hearn, reappears at significant intervals in a coffee shop, sauna, or on the squash court to advise Kepesh on his affair with Consuela. He performs admirably, as does Patricia Clarkson as Carolyn. Perhaps the biggest surprise is Peter Sarsgaard as Kepesh’s son Kenny, cast as a medical doctor, still having a problem resolving his love life dilemma and seeking sympathy from the father from whom he has been alienated for many years. Like Kingsley, Sarsgaard makes the character far more sympathetic, though the film fails to show exactly how, if at all, Kenny resolves his dilemma. (He does not leave his wife and children, but what happens to his lover?) In fact, the film leaves several loose threads hanging, unless we use our imaginations to fill in the blanks. It seems clear that after first lying to Carolyn about Consuela’s tampon, their once every three weeks’ liaison resumes, until David eventually tells Carolyne the truth. This happens after he learns of Consuela’s illness and describes the affair that once obsessed him. No recriminations follow as Carolyn listens rather sympathetically and then slowly finishes dressing and departs. Does she ever come back? After twenty years are they finally finished? Probably, but the film is not definitive. The main action, of course, concerns the relationship between Kepesh and Consuela. It had not occurred to me while reading the novel that Consuela must have a father complex. Her strong attraction to a man thirty years older than herself surely indicates this. She is very devoted to her family, who only briefly appear in the film and have no speaking roles; however the age difference between Kepesh and Consuela, which is so visually apparent, makes the inference plausible if not irresistible. When Kepesh finally decides to break off the affair by failing to show up at Consuela’s graduation party—a breakup that O’Hearn, worried about his friend’s stability, had been urging on him—it takes David several years to get over his obsession. For that is what it is—an obsession that is unlike anything he has ever experienced with any of the other students he has bedded at the end of each course he teaches. Although he beds other women after Consuela, as she beds other men, for neither of them is sex Elegy. Dir. Isabel Coixet. Sony Pictures, 2009. 288 Philip Roth Studies Fall 2009 now as good as it was for them when they were together. The film, far more than the novel, makes this very clear. Theirs is not merely an affair; David and Consuela have much deeper feelings for each other than just having sex. Similarly, the relationship between Kepesh and O’Hearn comes through as the devotion of two long standing friends, both dedicated to a life of untrammeled hedonism, that is, until David falls for Consuela. George’s concern for his friend is genuine and constant. He sees quite well what David is experiencing and the dangers that are involved. The way he dies at home after suffering a stroke is beautifully rendered, as David comes to see him on his deathbed and receives a hearty kiss on the lips, just before George struggles to embrace his wife of many years in a way that startles her. Her question later, “I wonder who he thought I was?” gets David’s reassurance that...