Dir.
Roger Michell, UK, 2006, 95 mins
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Leslie Phillips, Jodie Whittaker
Review by Carol Allen
Hanif Kureishi has
always displayed in his writing a healthy interest in the
role that sex in its many and various forms plays in our
lives. From his first film success My Beautiful Launderette,
through his novel and teleplay The Buddha of Suburbia (also
directed by Michell) to Patrice Chéreau's controversial
Intimacy in 1998. As he himself gets older Kureishi, who
is in his early 50s, now his film story telling imagination
towards the area of sex and older people. Just over three
years ago he and director Michell joined forces again for
The Mother in which a 60-something widow has an affair
with a much younger man. They now turn their attention
to the subject of sexuality in the older man in Venus,
featuring a brilliant Oscar nominated central performance
from Peter O'Toole as Maurice, a once beautiful actor now
ravaged with age, who has been a romantic rake all his
life and doesn't change personality just because his is
old and impotent from prostate problems.
Initially it looks as though it’s going to be a story
about the friendship between two ageing actors, Maurice and
Ian (Phillips), a sort of thespian version of A Rather English
Marriage Scenes of them at the beginning in their favourite
café counting out the various pills they take and
their camp theatrical jokes are very funny, while a later
scene set in the Actor’s Church (St Paul's, Covent
Garden), where they dance together to the strains of a string
quartet, is a very moving evocation of the beauty of life
when you know you’re not going to have much more of
it.
Their friendship is put under strain
when Ian's great niece Jess (Jodie Whittaker) comes to
stay with him and Maurice falls in love with her. She is
a right "chav",
a young woman of slobby habits and "attitude",
constantly chewing gum, slurping beer and more interested
in shopping than the cultural delights to which Maurice attempts
to introduce her. In her early scenes you want to slap her
but then without ever totally losing the suspicion and wariness,
which are an essential part of her, she gradually changes
as the relationship between her and Maurice evolves into
a kind of loving. Some women in particular may object to
the sexual frankness of the language and action of their
relationship but anything less would not be true to Maurice's
character.
O’Toole is superb with a wickedly
funny lecherous twinkle in his eye, brilliant comic timing
and the poignancy that his own former beauty brings to
the role. He does not however play for sympathy.
This is literally a very ballsy performance:Jodie
Whittaker is a star in the making. She looks like a Redgrave,
most particularly Jemma and she certainly has a comparable
talent, while a real Redgrave, Vanessa, makes a strong
impact in her few scenes as Maurice's strong and tolerant
ex wife and affectionate friend. The scenes between them
are beautifully done– feisty, funny and touching. Ian rather fades
out of the picture once the Maurice/Jess relationship takes
over, and good though Phillips is, his character is not nearly
as appealing as his friend's, being more tetchy, selfish
and self centred and lacking Maurice's charm and engagement
with life. Richard Griffiths also makes his mark as the third
member of the old codgers café club.
Kureishi and Mitchell are a class act. This is a feast of
first class writing, acting and directing, being simultaneously
achingly funny and sad about matters such as getting old,
the humiliations of age, the beauty of youth and the camaraderie
amongst actors.
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