i’ve been bedridden for around a week, and my condition fostered upon me many movies i might otherwise not have seen. there were two quite lovely surprises. the first, the enormous wet eyes of young emily watson as bess in lars von trier’s breaking the waves, brimming with adoration, with mischief, with hope, for stellan skarsgård’s jan. trier lets the actors be silent and simply watch each other, and as a consequence they feel more in love than any other screen couple i can think of. the second surprise was isabel coixet’s elegy, a very nice philip roth adaptation. there is only one actress, presently, who can remain honest before the cinematic gaze, who can take all the love the camera’s eye can give without ever seeming preening or falsely modest, and that is penélope cruz. here she fulfills all her promise as a big-screen idol. watching her in this film is returning to the roots of cinema, and it was a wonderful cap to my convalescence.