The Man from Elysian Fields - Andy Garcia: Hooker With a Heart

Every once in a while I run across the term “incompatible with life”. As in “this medical condition is incompatible with life”. Or, maybe, “your decision not to pay your loan shark debt is incompatible with life”. In simpler terms, it’s gonna kill you. But I think the term should have a wider meaning, encompass things that won’t end your physical existence, but rather render life as you know it unrecognizable. Mostly this would apply to those decisions people make that are just never going to work. The wrong choices for the wrong reasons leading to all sorts of stupid actions and bad consequences. The Man from Elysian Fields is all about the kind of choices that are, absolutely, incompatible with life.

Andy Garcia stars as Byron Tiller. Byron has succeeded in getting a novel published, and labels himself as a writer by profession. Unfortunately for Byron and his wife Dena (Julianna Margulies) his novel is a complete bomb. Apparently being published does not make one a success. When his second novel fails to garner the interest of his publisher, Byron swiftly gets caught in an eddy of self destruction. After lying to Dena about the book being published, Byron finds himself on the doorstep of Luther Fox (Mick Jagger), proprietor of Elysian Fields. Elysian Fields is an “escort service”. Luther thinks Byron has just what it takes to be successful in this line of work. Once he’s dipped a toe into the pool of deception and self loathing, Byron plunges headlong into self delusion, an ever widening web of lies, and the inescapable fact that his actions are incompatible with his life.

Director George Hickenlooper (someone tell this man he needs a Hollywood name) and writer Philip Jayson Lasker lay out the story of Byron Tiller in such a way that we understand his choices. He’s a proud man who needs to provide for his family. His father-in-law dismisses him as a failure that will never be able to do so. His wife idolizes him and assumes that everything will somehow turn out, a glorious example of the shiningly deluded optimist. Byron, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. After being turned down by the publisher and for one other job, he immediately assumes that he will never amount to anything, and basically punishes himself by choosing the most extreme option available to him. He is not just a pessimist, but a self destructive pessimist. It may not be something we would do, but in the context of the character of Byron, we understand why he chooses to become an escort. He is a failure, but he must provide for his family. As a failure, he must punish himself in order to do that, but can’t allow his shiny happy wife to know.

If this were the end to the tale, we wouldn’t really have much to grasp onto. Just a man who makes a desperate choice and pays the psychological price. But the story doesn’t end here. It goes into yet another area where choices and delusions lead to situations incompatible with life. Byron becomes involved, through Elysian Fields, with a woman connected to a very successful and well regarded author. When events conspire to make Byron into something of a protégé to this man, his own clouded view of what he needs to do and why he needs to do it causes him to dump even further into a never ending cycle of lies. This time the lies are accompanied by an ever increasing uneasiness that there is more to Byron’s motives than meets the eye. Yes, he is desperate. But for more than just money. He is desperate to prove he is not a failure, to become famous and successful. How much is he willing to sacrifice for this goal?

The movie provides a strong example of the practical impossibility of leading two separate lives simultaneously. With that first step into Elysian Fields, Byron sets himself up for yet another failure. Of what magnitude that failure will be, we don’t know. But it’s clear from the outset that this isn’t a workable arrangement. The desperation that leads him to Luther to begin with oozes from him, and when sudden opportunity presents itself he latches onto it with all his strength, forgetting his original goals entirely. Byron is a self fulfilling prophecy. He never fails so much as when he punishes himself for failing. But what will he do with the opportunity for success when it appears?

Garcia heads a strong cast. He is one of those actors that always seems on the brink of becoming a big star and never quite gets there. His Byron is a lovely mix of stubborn pride and forlorn self loathing. As the film progresses, we get to see Garcia transform that mix into something quite different, and infinitely more unappealing. He handles the role extremely well, allowing us to sympathize with Byron in all his different incarnations, as the changes are seamless and seemingly with only the best motivation. It isn’t until the end that we see things more clearly, which is as it should be. Garcia plays a large role in making the character likable enough to keep us with him throughout.

The supporting cast is equally good. Julianna Margulies has a relatively small and unidimensional role as Dena. She is only there to provide a one note optimistic foil to Byron’s pervasive pessimism, but she does a good job. Dena isn’t sweet enough to be sickening, which she easily could have been. Olivia Williams is excellent as the woman through whom Byron makes contact with the author. She is aloof, haughty and puts out a vibe of being inwardly tormented. She does a great job with a character that isn’t always what she seems. James Coburn is outstanding as our famous author. Commanding, vulnerable, domineering and genial all at the same time, he plays an enormous part in making the second half of the film believable. Without his excellent performance, we would not have been nearly as able to follow along with Byron on his rollercoaster ride.

Then we have Mick Jagger. For the record, Mick Jagger is not what I would ever consider to be the perfect person to fill any role whatsoever. He’s just creepy through and through. Yet even he won me over as Luther the “madam” of Elysian Fields. Jagger does quite a bit of voice over narration, which works delightfully well. His clipped English accent makes even the tawdry seem somehow upper crust. His subplot involving a longstanding “relationship” with Jennifer (Anjelica Huston) is a very nice encapsulation of the experience of being an “escort”. In a way this is as much his story as Byron’s, though we really don’t understand that until the end of the film. The way Hickenlooper puts the movie together, we get some scenes at the end of the film allowing us to reflect on what we’ve seen and put it all into some sort of perspective. Where other films might have left off and let the viewer take away what they would, Hickenlooper and writer Lasker throw in a little more of their own sense of focus. It isn’t like being hit on the head with a moral, more like seeing what was there the whole time, just more clearly.

The film does have its weak moments. The initial downfall of Byron is telegraphed from the first scenes. Though that certainly doesn’t need to be a surprise for the film to work as a whole, it would be nice if the guy didn’t have LOSER painted on his forehead from the first frame. There is also a character that seems far too healthy for his supposed, well, health. Some of the scenes of Byron’s initial forays into the escort business are also a little weak. The dialogue is stilted and feels unnatural, and the actors seem to feel it. Their delivery during these scenes suffers with the weak writing.

But these are minor annoyances in an otherwise very strong film. The portrait of a failed double life and the inevitability of desperation and sudden opportunity leading to bad choices is a good one. The actors are up to the challenge of making this dark subject come alive, and the script takes enough turns that we don’t spend the entire film simply wallowing in the downfall of Byron. There are plenty of ups and downs, and the final outcome really comes into question toward the end of the film. The Man from Elysian Fields isn’t really a movie about male prostitutes. It’s a movie about what people do when they feel desperate, when they feel like failures, when they see a glimmer of hope. It’s a movie about lies and choices and consequences. It’s a movie where Mick Jagger doesn’t suck. It’s a movie about some of the many things that can be “incompatible with life”.