Isabel Coixet’s “Elegy” is an uncompromising drama about the consequences of not letting love into one’s life. It deals with the concept of age and how it can have an effect on someone’s psyche and relationship with the opposite sex.

Based on Philip Roth’s “The Dying Animal,” David (Ben Kingsley) is a professor at a top-notch university. He makes it his living to sleep with some of his students (after grading so it avoids suspicion) after his term. But Consuela (Penelope Cruz) is a different breed. She’s made David feel emotions that he never experienced before. He confides this with his best friend (Dennis Hopper). David also has a sex-only partner (Patricia Clarkson) and an estranged son (Peter Sarsgaard) that looks to blame him for everything wrong with his personal life.

Hopper, Clarkson and Sarsgaard are solid across the board in portraying their characters. Cruz reveals plenty of flesh but she shows a lot of substance in her role. But the movie is stolen by Kingsley. His transformation from a man devoid of letting love touch him to a man that gets hurt the most at the end is powerful. Not since “Sexy Beast” has Kingsley been this transfixing.

We are in a world where a happy ending isn’t going to be seen. Right from the beginning, we sense that David and Consuela will never fully reach the love that we want them to have. We can’t help but to see this failure come to its glorious demise.