The Man from Elysian Fields

REVIEW
Dejected writer Byron Tiller (Garcia), struggling to provide for his family, strikes a Faustian bargain with Luthor Fox (Jagger), a suave Continental operating a high-class escort service. Tiller gets absorbed in an odd trilateral affair with a lonely beauty (Williams) and her dying husband (Coburn), a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author whom Tiller happens to idolize. When the hired stud isn’t working on the alienated wife in the boudoir, he’s off in the study collaborating with his hero and sudden best friend on a new novel. Alas, Tiller’s oblivious wife (Margulies) soon gets wise and their marriage is thrown into a predictable tizzy, just as his own bought emotions for his wealthy clients come to a searing head. This finely polished curio contains sporadic sparks of wit and some classy performers, but never quite rises above its melodrama-of-the-week trappings. Anjelica Huston appears unbilled.