![]() Indeed, of the performers, only Mick Jagger, as the head of the escort company (Elysian Fields) who starts Byron on his rode to personal disaster, falls short of his potential. Margulies is poignant as Byron's devoted but naïve spouse whose world comes crashing down around her the moment she discovers the man she married is not the man she thought he was. Williams gives a beautiful performance as his young wife genuinely in love with a man who can no longer return that love on any but the most spiritual level. Watching the deceased Coburn delivering a speech about impending death carries with it an eerie prescience that only enriches the melancholic tone of the work. With his gnarled hands and grizzled face, Coburn strikes right at the heart of what it means for a man of genius to be in the final throes of his life, terrified of losing his creative powers at the end and desperate to leave behind an untarnished image when he's gone. Garcia is aided immeasurably by the tone of elegiac sadness that permeates the film, as well as by the superb performances from Julianna Margulies, Olivia Williams and the late, great James Coburn, whose valedictory performance this turned out to be. He makes Byron into such a sympathetic figure that we can't help but follow him along on his journey. Even though we may question the credibility of Byron's decision (after all, were there NO other options for employment that he could come up with?), the depth and richness of Garcia's performance brush all such quibbles aside. ![]() With its highly original and provocative storyline, `The Man From Elysian Fields' exerts an almost hypnotic pull on its audience, seductively drawing us into the lives and the complex relationships of its numerous characters. His very first client turns out to be the lovely young wife of a dying novelist who exploits Byron not only for his sexual prowess but for his skills as a writer, devising a scheme to get him to assist her husband in completing his final work (given his incapacitated state, the novelist and his wife have an arrangement that she is free to seek male companionship from an escort service). Driven by desperation, Byron reluctantly agrees to sell his services as an `escort' for lonely women. Andy Garcia, in one of his best screen performances to date, stars as Byron Tiller, a generally unsuccessful novelist who finds himself so low on funds that he is literally unable to support the wife and child he loves so dearly. And what a strange little tale it turns out to be. Eat your heart out, Madonna.Among its myriad unique qualities, `The Man From Elysian Fields' portrays Southern California not as the traditional sun-drenched paradise familiar to us from postcards and movies, but rather as a dank, drizzly, depressing locale, a perfect backdrop for the sad little tale the filmmakers are telling. Jagger the actor is someone you want to see again. You can see it in Elysian Fields and in the formation of his own company, Jagged Films (this year’s Enigma was the company’s intelligent firstborn). Said his Performance co-star James Fox, “Once Mick discovered what acting was about, he wasn’t interested.” Well, he’s interested now. Then nothing until the 1990s, when he played a bounty hunter in Freejack and a transvestite in Bent. Jagger’s few screen roles - the Stones kept him busy - sold flash: In 1970 he was the outlaw in Ned Kelly and the druggy pop idol in Performance. Jagger invests the scene with painful vulnerability. But his work digs deeper, especially when Luther proposes to a client (Anjelica Huston), saying, “If you don’t use success to enrich your life, then you’re just putting failure into Gucci shoes.” She laughs him off. ![]() Jagger delivers the line martini-dry, letting his lip curl with just the right twist-of-lemon wickedness. To which Luther nods: “Call me old-fashioned.” The film is a seductive morality tale about a strapped novelist (Andy Garcia) who helps support his family by letting Luther pimp him out to rich women. Mick Jagger tames his Rolling Stones energy to ease into the role of Luther Fox, the dapper owner of a male-escort service in George Hickenlooper’s The Man From Elysian Fields. ![]()
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