Elegy

Ben Kingsley, who I have loved in roles such as Gandhi, House of Sand and Fog, and most recently The Wackness, failed to impress me in Elegy. I found the character he plays, David Kepesh, a college professor, heartless and kind of pathetic. (Richard Jenkins in The Visitor who also plays a cynical professor, is so much more interesting to watch and easier to care about) The central relationship of the movie for the professor is with the much younger sexy temptress Consuela, played by guess who? The woman who plays a sexy temptress better than any one else, Penelope Cruz. The movie centers around this May-December romance, but I never really felt the connection between these two. I tried to think of other movies where this type of relationship seemed right so I googled May-December relationships and wouldn't you know, there is actually a Wikipedia site called List of films featuring May-December romances. From the list, both older men with younger women and older women with younger men, none of them strike me as couples with incredible chemistry. So maybe I have trouble seeing this type or romance as fodder for a good movie. Despite all this, there is something missing in Elegy; it lacks heart, I didn't really care about too much about any of the characters even though they all try to cope with tragic situations. Great actors such as Peter Sarsgaard, Dennis Hopper, and Patricia Clarkson, experience heart ache and even a heart attack, but failed to move me.