Best to wear roomy shoes to Isabel Coixet�s drama about an affair between a professor and his student, the better to deal with the toe-curling moments in an otherwise polished piece.
Star rating: ***
Dir: Isabel Coixet
With: Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz
BEST to wear roomy shoes to Isabel Coixet's drama about an affair between a professor and his student, the better to deal with the toe-curling moments in an otherwise polished piece. An adaptation of The Dying Animal, Elegy is an everyday Rothian tale of sex, death, and minor ailments.
Volver star Penelope Cruz, the picture's saving grace, plays Consuela, the thirtysomething literature student dazzled by sixtysomething David (Ben Kingsley). Much of the picture is a familiar, downbeat dramedy of Manhattan manners. It's in the bedroom that the going gets uncomfortable. "You are a work of art," says a breathless David to his Cuban Mona Lisa. Oh dear.
