The Man from Elysian Fields

The Man from Elysian Fields is a 2001 American drama film directed by George Hickenlooper, and starring Andy Garcia, Mick Jagger, Olivia Williams, Julianna Margulies, and James Coburn.

The Man from Elysian Fields
Directed by	George Hickenlooper
Written by	Phillip Jayson Lasker
Produced by	Andy García David Kronemeyer Andrew Pfeffer Donald Zuckerman
Starring	Andy García Mick Jagger Olivia Williams Julianna Margulies Michael Des Barres James Coburn
Cinematography	Kramer Morgenthau
Edited by	Michael Brown
Music by	Anthony Marinelli
Production companies	Fireworks Pictures Gold Circle Films Shoreline Entertainment
Distributed by	Samuel Goldwyn Films
Release dates	September 13, 2001 (2001-09-13) (Toronto International Film Festival) September 27, 2002 (2002-09-27)
Running time	106 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$2,006,391

Synopsis

After one book ending in the remainder bins, novelist Byron Tiller's inability to pay the bills strains relations with his wife. Desperate for any income, he meets Luther Fox, an Englishman who runs an exclusive escort service called Elysian Fields and is offered a job.

Hiding his new employment from his wife, Byron finds that one of his clients, Andrea, is married to a much older, ill Pulitzer Prize-winning author whom Tiller dramatically admires. Complications develop as he develops a relationship with the author, essentially co-writing his latest book. Tiller faces new challenges as he tries to separate a professional obligation to the wife and his client from a professional interest and responsibility to a fellow writer and her spouse.

Cast

• Andy Garcia as Byron Tiller
• Mick Jagger as Luther Fox^[1]
• Julianna Margulies as Dena Tiller
• Olivia Williams as Andrea Alcott
• James Coburn as Tobias Alcott
• Anjelica Huston as Jennifer Adler
• Michael Des Barres as Nigel Halsey
• Richard Bradford as Edward Rodgers

Reception

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes the film had a rating of 51% based on 70 reviews, with an average of 5.9/10. The site's consensus states: "Critics Consensus: This story about a gigolo isn't plausible or compelling enough."^[2] On Metacritic it has a score of 57 based on reviews from 26 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[3]

It was hailed as "One of the Best Films of 2002" by critic Roger Ebert.^[4] In a 2020 retrospective, The Guardian's Zach Vasquez praised Jagger's acting, considering it "one of his best performances" while otherwise calling the film "one of the worst movies Jagger has appeared in". Vasquez found Jagger's "sensitive, wounded performance" so "surprisingly effective" that "one has to assume he dug deep into his own history of promiscuity and heartbreak."^[5]