Helpless Love-Elegy

Year: 2008
Directed: Isabel Coixet
Written: Nicholas Meyer, based on the novel “The Dying Animal” by Philip Roth
Director of photography: Jean-Claude Larrieu
Cast: Penelope Cruz , Ben Kingsley, Dennis Hopper, Patricia Clarkson,
Peter Sarsgaard

I found the movie extremely compelling for it's dialogue and the powerful command of emotional expression displayed by Kingsley and Cruz. The movie is about neither a love story between student and teacher nor an affair between a beautiful young girl and an old professor.


Love can be happened at any place, any time, any situation. Even it's in a helpless situation, but people still want to love, just love. The movie is also about sex and death in an aging way.



The review of this film should be written from the perspective of the man thinking of responsibility about love and marriage. It is outrageously beautiful to see the truth behind the lack of commitment most men struggling from.


The story is banal, the ending is too simple, but the movie filled with visual moments and easily a dozen memorable quote to recall in conversation after watching. The acting is decent.


The movie is very personal. From one point of view, you can tell it's a female director film.



I found it is bloody interesting about the interpretation about an affair discussed between a father and a son.


Photography of the movie did an exquisite work . The color/tone of the movie is gray. Gray is a tone of bitterness and sadness, but gray in happiness made you feel the deepness of love.

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