Left Field Cinema

Cinema is an art of faces and performance, from the time of silent movies where so much was conveyed solely by the magnificence of the use of facial characters to today where a face still remains central to a performance. A great performance from a charismatic actor or actress can often lift a film from something that is merely entertaining to something which becomes profound. Often these sublime performances come from the young, where the great actors have charisma to burn, they are hungry and forceful. Marlon Brando's performance in A Street Car Named Desire immediately springs to mind or Paul Newman in The Hustler. They command the audience with the force of their personality, and often their startling beauty. Peter O’Toole gave one such performance during his earliest role in Lawrence of Arabia. However, his performance in 2007’s Venus shows that his charisma burns as brightly as at any point in his career.

Peter O’Toole plays an aged bit-part actor called Maurice, he and his friends spend a great deal of their time sitting in cafes and reading obituaries. One friend Ian (played by the sparkling Leslie Philips) requires help to live, his niece’s daughter would fit the bill excellently. Jessie turns up and does not fit Ian’s ideal caregiver; she is sullen, young and uneducated. Maurice can only see beauty. The film becomes one of the most unusual stories in recent cinema, with O’Toole’s Maurice wooing the much younger Jessie with absolutely no hope that anything will come to fruition. It is a quiet, profoundly moving tale about love, which can come in many forms. It is also sexually explicit in a real way, but with such an array of beautifully constructed visceral and tactile scenes highlighting this.

The Hollywood machine loves young beauties and older men. Cary Grant, John Wayne and Sean Connery all revelled playing alongside younger women, however this film pull no punches, O’Toole is not made debonair and dashing. He is old, he looks old, but he is still alive and intends to make the most of it before his inevitable end.

O’Toole gives a performance of such subtle depth it is a wonder that any plaudits can be spared for other actors in the piece, however they are so wonderful they deserve equal praise. Jodie Whittaker as the titular Venus stands toe-to-toe with the great actor and holds her own, she brings a wounded quality which is never hidden by her hard shell. Vanessa Redgrave who appears for only a few short scenes is wonderfully emotive as Maurice’s ex-wife who still remained friends with him despite the philandering. There scenes are wonderful together as the spark of old glories and romance jumps off the screen with the electricity of their acting. But special mention must be given to Leslie Philips. Philips' caustic moaning is hilarious throughout the film; his scenes at the beginning where he moans that Jessie cannot prepare a simple fish are very funny. However as the film progresses his character takes on an additional dimension as the audience realises that his feelings for Maurice run deeper, they have been friends for so long it is love. This is been handled with great restraint by the writer and director; Philips' beautifully judged performance will break even the hardest of hearts.

There are a plethora of wonderful scenes: O’Toole quoting Shakespeare through a door to Whittaker in a bath, the camera focusing on Whittaker’s face as she realises she deserves more, she deserves love; O’Toole attempting to break into Jessie's nude modelling scene and causing quite a scene as he barges through the door, and perhaps the most beautiful scene is where Maurice and Ian visit a church with memorials to long gone actors, it is handled with a touching elegance. Also every sarcastic, wonderful and melancholic moment between Richard Griffiths, Leslie Philips and Peter O’Toole as aged luvvies is truly to be treasured.

Venus also surprisingly contains a quietly profound script with a number of hushed moments of intimacy. Highlighted thoroughly by one of the most beautiful exchanges in recent cinema history:

Maurice: For most men, a woman's body is the most beautiful thing they will ever see. Jessie: What's the most beautiful thing a girl sees? Do you know? Maurice: Her first child.

O’Toole’s delivery breaks your heart, he knows that his ‘Venus’ has had an abortion, but he is not trying to hurt her but open her eyes – a selfishness all of its own. The screenplay is also fearless in tackling some purely uncomfortable moments; the lust that Peter O’Toole still has left in him is explicitly detailed.

This film is not perfect and has a number of undoubted flaws, it contains an awful soundtrack including a shockingly bad use of modern pop songs, the Corrine Bailey Rae tune in particular really spoils a whole scene. Also as the film careers towards the end the writer and director change this small hushed film and inject it with a huge moment of melodrama. It cannot be argued that the film was not building to this moment from the beginning however it could have been handled with more care. However, this lapse in judgement is redeemed by a tender final act, as the film becomes some what of a two-hander and Peter O’Toole and Jodie Whittaker produce such an emotional response the audience will be thoroughly drained by the end.

W.McLachlan