Elegy

Celebrity Professor and womaniser Ben Kingsley sets out to seduce his student Penelope Cruz in Elegy only to find more than he bargained for.

I love films set in New York. The apartment, restaurant and cafe scenes always are very attractive to me. How you react to this portrayal of a relationship across the generations will be a matter of personal taste but I think most people will be impressed by the performances of Kingsley and Cruz. Kingsley is always so convincing playing a range of characters and personalities regardless of whether he superficially has the looks for the part although in this film I think he very much looks and sounds the part. Cruz is impressive in a more restrained performance that I can recall seeing from her.

Peter Sarsgaard has a small role as Kingsley's son. Sarsgaard's sleepy eyed sonambulant acting style will not suit everyone. I have thought him very sexy even before he rather thoughtfully revealed himself full frontal in Kinsey and therefore I am happy to watch him in anything. However I felt several of his scenes with Kingsley seemed quite at odds with the rest of the movie.

There is something French about the style of Elegy, a tale of relationships and not much action.