Venus (2006)

How about instead of giving you a plot description, I direct you to the trailer? That's okay, you can watch it. I'll wait.

No, seriously, go ahead.

All done? So you're thinking, what, sweet little comedy about an unlikely friendship between an older man and a younger woman? With the pom POM on the soundtrack, and the "I'm nice to her," and the Corinne Bailey Rae encouraging us to tell her our favourite song and let our hair down? And maybe he helps her develop a little self-esteem, so she can come to the point where she self-identifies as Venus, Roman goddess of love and beauty?

You're not going to see that movie. You might want to see that movie, and I certainly did, given that I've see the trailer the last three or four times I've been to the Bytowne. Unfortunately, that movie does not exist. All those scenes exist in this movie, to be sure, and there really is a scene set to "Put Your Records On."

If you make the mistake of screening this movie, however, you will be treated to an unnerving experience about one elderly gentleman's sexual obsession with his friend's niece, a wretched woman with no self-esteem who uses the old man's attraction to manipulate him every chance she gets. It's disgusting and awful, and I feel kind of sorry for Jodie Whittaker to be "introduced" in such a role. To her credit, she does a great job with the physicality of the role, wonderfully conveying how uncomfortable in her own skin Jessie is, but the script has this minor problem: by the end, there's really no redeeming Jessie. She turns around too late for the audience to do anything save despise her.

Despite the characterization of Jessie, the movie has two even greater flaws. The first is the way it gives you glimpses of another, better movie, one about a bunch of formerly successful actors now going about the day-to-day of business of being old: relegated to the sidelines, trading pills over morning coffee, discussing obits. There seems to be a bittersweet comedy in there about aging and fame, but we don't get to see it. Leslie Phillips, Vanessa Redgrave, and Richard Griffiths are all delightful distractions from the A plot. Too bad there's not enough of them to go around.

The second of these flaws is also the movie's other saving grace: Peter O'Toole's fantastically honest performance as Maurice. He's lyrical as a man accustomed to having any woman he wants and finding his latest attempt unmoved. But it doesn't last. Nothing good in this movie lasts for nearly as long as it should and that which we do not wish to see goes on and on and on.

I suppose I should take that as a comment on life, but I very much doubt that director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi had that in mind. C-