Affair alters lives in ‘Elegy’

Movie: "Elegy"

When: Opening Friday at Village Square

Cast: Ben Kingsley, Penélope Cruz, Patricia Clarkson, Peter Sarsgaard, Dennis Hopper

Director: Isabel Coixet

The story: A celebrated, skirt-chasing college professor (Kingsley) becomes involved with a Cuban-American graduate student (Cruz), igniting an affair that alters both lives.

The buzz: With Cruz generating well-deserved Oscar talk for her firecracker performance in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and Kingsley's currently thrill ride on the "Transsiberian" express (thereby enabling everybody to forget "Love Guru"), their teaming in this adaptation of Philip Roth's novella "The Dying Animal" seems timely indeed. Indie darling Clarkson, Cruz's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" co-star, next rejoins Kingsley in Martin Scorsese's upcoming thriller "Shutter Island," while she and Sarsgaard first worked together in 2005's "The Dying Gaul."