RojoVenus
Occasionally I watch a movie and from the get go I know I’m in for a treat. A soon as Venus begun I was in hysterics two old washed up thespians talking to one another like only friend whom have been so for a great many years. This type of conversation revolves around insults and when Peter O’Toole and Leslie Phillps firing them back and forward to one another magic on screen is created.
Writer Hanif Kurdish (My beautiful Laundrette, The Mother) once again teams up with Roger Michell (The Mother) and delivers a beautiful, I mean, just beautiful film. The Mother I found average if not perverse but in Venus I was delivered a touching story of Maurice as he comes to the end of his life and finds love in a young (very young) Jesse or as he refers to her as Venus.
Jesse (Jodie Whittaker) is a trash, fowl mouthed lass that unwittingly lures Maurice towards her. Maurice a man of the world allows himself to be taken by her if not encourages her ways. The two forge a relationship ostensibly based on ones dirty urges and ones greed for attention. But of course there is so much more to their relationship. Jesse a aspiring model (without a backup plan) learns from Maurice, just as he learns from Jesse the younger generations inclinations.
Now you can be forgiven for thinking that this is just another film where a young person finds themselves with the aid of a older person (I wrote a short film around the same idea knowing it wasn’t an original story). This is where the beauty of the script and the genius of O’Toole takes over. The script is a touch of class. I watched this film and it made me feel like a hack, I just couldn’t believe the lines I was hearing, I was almost crying with laughter just as I was almost crying at the end of the film. (Sorry if I slipped a sight spoiler in there but the outcome of this film is obvious from the beginning).
Peter O’Toole received many nominations for this role and lost to many different people and this folks is a shame. Peter O’Toole is this film, his boyish charm is ever prevalent in his old man frame. His eyes are brimming with a life force that penetrates through the camera, he need only look and he invokes something within us. I can not recommend this film highly enough.
8/10
