ELEGY

CAROLINE: Well, it would have been nice to have you there to help distract me from my boredom.

RYAN: Ouch! Was it long and slow, or just plain old boring?

CAROLINE: Let me backtrack a little and say it’s very well made and well acted. Patricia Clarkson is also in it, and she’s fabulous as always. But it just wasn’t what I expected. I guess I didn’t realize that the whole movie is all about Ben and Penelope’s love affair.

RYAN: How’s their chemistry? That’s what really matters. Because I think there’s nothing hot about Ben Kingsley. He kinda makes me want to puke.

CAROLINE: I wasn’t gonna go there, but now that you’ve opened the door, I must. He’s got that huge schnozzle and he’s not even a little cute. It’s so hard to watch him doing love scenes.

RYAN: He’s also short and bald.

CAROLINE: Exactly my point. And yet he’s bagging hot babes left and right in this movie. It’s an interesting film up to a point, but then I realized nothing else was going to happen other than him being madly in lust with Penelope Cruz. But there are some cool scenes with Ben Kingsley and Dennis Hopper, his best friend. And Peter Sarsgaard makes a brief appearance as his son.

RYAN: Cool. We like Maggie Gyllenhaal’s baby daddy.

CAROLINE: Together they have more A’s in their last names than anyone else in the world.

RYAN: OMG you’re right! That is so worth noting. But I’m getting bored just hearing you talk about this movie. What’s your bottom line?

CAROLINE: It’s not a bad movie by any means, I just found it very slow. I didn’t buy Penelope Cruz’s attraction to Ben Kingsley even though he’s her professor so she’s mainly attracted to his intellect. There were some good scenes, but it really started to drag in the second half. If you’re a fan of these actors or Philip Roth though, you’ll probably enjoy it.