The stillness of the performances combined with Coixet's direction, which takes it time, and that bloody piano tinkling and tinkling away make it all rather heavy going; makes you feel as if you've just swum uphill through treacle.

| Aug 23, 2018

Coixet has blunted the impact of the novel's ending just as she has softened Roth's misanthropic depiction of Kepesh and, as a result, she's taken flak for being over-polite. I didn't care.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 10, 2009

With his fierce, impeccable craft Kingsley shows us around David's tortured, preening, desperate psyche.

| Nov 10, 2008

| Original Score: B- | Oct 18, 2008

Sparse, low-budget drama, helmed by Spaniard Isabel Coixet, intelligently translates Roth's meditation on lust and mortality without soft-pedaling its narrator's brutally honest, unabashedly sexist views.

Full Review | Oct 18, 2008

Penelope Cruz is outstanding in an otherwise lame male fantasy.

Full Review | Oct 18, 2008

Elegy is a rare treat: a serious film that, thanks to Kingsley and the rest, doesn't seem to take itself too seriously.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 4, 2008

Elegy gives Ben Kingsley one of the best roles of his career.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 22, 2008

A feat that Coixet (My Life Without Me, The Secret Life of Words) and her exquisite cast pull off with knowing aplomb and subtle skill.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2008

It's beautifully photographed and slowly paced, all the better to emphasize the film's emphasis on and exploration of deep feelings.

| Original Score: B | Aug 22, 2008

The best dramatic film of the year so far.

| Original Score: a | Aug 22, 2008

Kingsley perfectly tunes his performance to these psychological nuances, the strong features in his face undone by an anxious flicker of his eyes.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 22, 2008

It's nicely done.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 22, 2008

Elegy excels when it focuses solely on Kingsley and Cruz, two actors who inhabit these roles so completely that they're more interesting than the plot twists that surround them.

| Aug 21, 2008

The delicious conflict of a thinker poleaxed by his feelings inflames Isabel Coixet's smoldering Elegy, based on Roth's novella The Dying Animal.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 21, 2008

Elegy is a curious example of misplaced good taste. Spanish-born director Isabel Coixet's film, adapted by Nicholas Meyer, recasts into softer, more palatable material the...third in Philip Roth's stories driven by the sensual obsessions of Roth al

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 21, 2008

Director Isabel Coixet sees David's tragedy, but also his life force, and she draws brilliant work out of Cruz.

| Original Score: A | Aug 11, 2008

Wonderful writing, good performances, beautiful photography, and a lot of food for thought.

Full Review | Aug 11, 2008

It's beautiful, but nobody involved was ever sure what the movie was actually about, or why they were making it.

| Aug 8, 2008

A spare, meditative and melancholy film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 8, 2008