Synopsis
A failed novelist's inability to pay the bills strains relations with his wife and leads him to work at an escort service where he becomes entwined with a wealthy woman whose husband is a successful writer.
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Cast
- Andy GarcíaByron
- Julianna MarguliesDena
- Anjelica HustonJennifer Adler
- Olivia WilliamsAndrea
- Mick JaggerLuther
- James CoburnAlcot
- Susan BarnesAttractive Woman
- Michael Des BarresNigel
- Richard BradfordEdward Rodgers
- Xander BerkeleyVirgil Koster
Recommendations
- 80
Los Angeles Times
A shimmering fable of innocence and experience set in contemporary Los Angeles and Pasadena (its title is a nod to Virgil's "Aeneid"). Phillip Jayson Lasker's tartly knowing script, with the kind of witty dialogue that's all but vanished from American movies, recalls Hickenlooper's "The Low Life." - 70
The A.V. Club
Less a fantasy than a somber, enveloping mood piece, which is a large part of what makes it so strangely, irrationally compelling. - 70
Variety
A fine cast further illuminates a felicitous script. - 63
New York Daily News
Craggy oldsters Mick Jagger and James Coburn steal the show from the young uns in The Man From Elysian Fields, a mostly entertaining twist on the Faust story about a writer who sells himself cheap. - 60
TV Guide Magazine
It's Jagger's bone-dry, mournfully brittle delivery that gives the film its bittersweet bite. Michael Des Barres and Anjelica Huston make the most of their supporting roles. - 60
The New York Times
By the end, after an hour and a half of wondering -- sometimes amusedly, sometimes impatiently -- just what this strenuously unconventional movie is supposed to be, you discover that the answer is as conventional as can be. - 60
L.A. Weekly
Despite its dry wit and compassion, the film suffers from a philosophical emptiness and maddeningly sedate pacing, and, in the end, the only aspect of the movie that truly commands attention is Jagger's desperately inexpressive acting, which hasn’t improved one iota since "Ned Kelly." - 58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Wonderfully cast but underwhelming and never especially believable.
