The Man from Elysian Fields ( The Escort ) [DVD]

The fact that Byron is a writer struggling to be a success is a major part of this story, but we get a bit distracted by the fact that screenwriter Phillip Jayson Lasker (who wrote episodes of "Barney Miller" and "The Golden Girls"), is doing a twist on the familiar idea of someone turning to prostitution to survive. Such stories are almost always about young women out on their own, they are not about married men with a child at home (as "American Gigolo" amply proved). Byron is assigned to escort Andrea Alcott (Olivia Williams), the wife of the famous writer Tobias Alcott (James Coburn), who is terminally ill. Byron once took a class on Alcott's Pulitzer Prize winning writings and even bones up on his works to be prepared to charm his wife. Of course, Mrs. Alcott wants to be more than merely charmed, and if Byron is not surprised that he can go through with it, then he is surprised that Alcott walks in on the scene and does not seem bothered by another man being in his wife's bed.

What is going to happen is probably obvious to us, but Byron starting descending through the various levels of his personal hell with the best of intentions. But while he lies with Alcott's wife he tells lies to his own, and it is just a question of which is the bigger mistake. What makes it all worthwhile is not the paycheck that he gets from Elysian Fields, but the rapport he establishes with Alcott and the offer that would be the answer to all of Bryon's prayers. There are some definite homages here to "Sunset Blvd.," but "The Man from Elysian Fields" is about a different type of suicide. My main problem with the script is that when Byron finds out finds out exactly how he has been victimized there is a way out of it (specifically a way of proving that which cannot be proven). But director George Hickenlooper's film will find what relative redemption it can offer in a different way.

There are a couple of minor characters in this 2002 film that bring the storyline into sharp relief. Anjelica Huston plays Jennifer Adler, the one client that Fox still sees, and who provides him with a moment of brutal clarity that convinces him it is time for him to get out of this business. The other is Michael Des Barres as Nigel Halsey, the experience gigolo at Elysian Fields who teaches Bryon the ropes and who is forced to have his own moment of honest reflection when a question is asked by a most surprising client. What the two characters have in common is that while others may be visiting for a short while or a long time in this world, they will never be leaving. In our brief visit to these world we meet some interesting characters acting out a modern morality play.