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Has there ever been a director who has fallen so far, so slowly, over so many attempts as Woody Allen? 
He's the Ralph Nader of the film world, his downward trajectory marked by an early genius tarnished by repeated folly later in life.
Many fans will have some specific film in mind when pinpointing the last straw: An entry so egregiously dull, pretentious, or derivative of earlier work that they officially ended their long-term relationship with the director's ever-expanding oeuvre, preferring to re-live better days through the magic of DVD. Maybe it goes as far back as the mean-spirited, Mia-bashing Husbands and Wives; the condescending and meretricious Mighty Aphrodite; the pointless Smalltime Crooks. For me, the irrevocable jumping of the shark came in the form of Anything Else, a film, for me, that's pretty much unwatchable. It seemed impossible that the creator of Annie Hall could have also conceived of, in the same lifetime, such a misguided project, and not just for the money. It was like Orson Welles attempting one last gift to posterity and coming up with Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
Not that Woody was ever Orson Welles. But he was ingenious in his own way. Can we make anything of the fact that his long decline started around the same time as his very public and vicious split with Mia Farrow? I think as a case of a creative figure's arrested personal development made manifest on-screen, we can. All of a sudden this exchange from Annie Hall didn't seem that funny:
Rob: Imagine my surprise when I got your call, Max.
Alvy: Yeah. I had the feeling that I got you at a bad moment. You know, I heard high-pitched squealing.
Rob: Twins, Max! 16 years-old. Can you imagine the mathematical possibilities?
This film was adapted from the Philip Roth novella The Dying Animal, which is a close second to that author's The Human Stain as the title most likely to ensure some studio executive gets canned. Thus, the re-titled Elegy, connoting an atmosphere more bittersweet and less existentially primal, but just as Oscar-worthy.
The movie stars Ben Kingsley, who always gives an engaging performance, and Penelope Cruz, an actress once touted as the next J-Lo, back when that registered as a compliment. Kingsley plays professor David Kepesh, a sexegenerian public intellectual who appears on Charlie Rose, writes for The New Yorker, and has written a book on the Puritans' eradication of a licentious splinter group, which ensured the triumphalism of American prudery from pilgrim days to the summer of love. His regret at and rebellion against that development is expressed by his own life as an academic cocksman, and the semi-hysterics, reminiscent of the Susquehanna hat sketch, he falls into whenever someone mentions his past marriage.
Kepish's lust is set off when Consuela, a so-drop-dead gorgeous-you-wanna-kill-yourself Cuban takes his class. At his own cocktail party, the much older teacher seduces her with a series of well-practiced moves, dazzling cocktail chatter, and ancient professorial pick-up lines like, "You have an elegant austerity.” review continued
