Video: Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz in “Elegy”

Ben Kingsley has played some strange roles of late, but critics are lauding his layered and typically brilliant performance in Isabel Coixet’s Elegy, where he plays Professor David Kepesh, an aging cultural critic who takes his pleasures with his female students, while never letting anyone get truly close to him. That is, until he poised and perfect Consuela Castillo (Penelope Cruz) enters his classroom and becomes more than just an object of lust, but one of obsession, until his jealousy unravels all that passed between them. Until years pass, and Consuela returns to his life with an urgent question she can only ask of him.

We’ve got an extended clip of the film here, in which Professor Kepesh appears on Charlie Rose, discussing the effects of Puritanism on America, and the sexual revolution. He then reflects on his advancing age and lays his eyes upon Consuela in his classroom. It’s quiet. It’s beautiful.

Watch an extended clip of Ben Kingsley as Professor Kepesh in Isabel Coixet’s Elegy.
Watch the trailer for Elegy.