Venus

Director: Roger Michell

Inspired by Juichiro Tanizaki’s Diary of a Mad Old Man (according to IMDB) for what feels like a natural reverse-gender companion piece to The Mother, their previous study of sexuality in the winter of life, director Roger Michell teams once again with writer Hanif Kureishi for Venus, their story about an aging actor who forms an irrational obsession with a girl roughly fifty years his junior. Although the trailers and clips featuring the legendary Peter O’Toole as Maurice made the character look like a sleazy Humbert Humbert Nabokovian styled lothario, the content is surprisingly tame (unlike The Mother) as we watch him become enchanted by the brash, junk-food eating, hard drinking, and frankly obnoxious aspiring model/party girl Jessie (Jodie Whittaker), the niece of his good friend Ian. As Ian, Leslie Phillips turns in a stellar performance equally worthy of critical awards and acclaim, although his less than showy role was lost in the shuffle during 2006 awards time when O’Toole was the toast of tinseltown earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and despite my admiration for the man, I frankly didn’t feel it was Oscar worthy, especially given his far better work for over forty years. An understated film that plays better as a character piece especially in dealing with the complex sexually charged power dynamic between Jessie and Maurice as the two form an unlikely friendship that is always tinged with psychological mystery as they use each other throughout until a thoroughly earned emotional payoff that at last gives the audience some slight sympathy for Jessie near the end of the film. While Whittaker does hold her own in her cinematic debut (which is no small feat opposite Mr. Lawrence of Arabia), I think the film would’ve been even more intriguing had they given Jessie even the smallest kernel of integrity or likability from the start as we’re mostly annoyed from start to finish by her entire persona and don’t fully agree with Maurice’s Venus nickname. It would be interesting to see the same tale told from Jessie’s point-of-view or in the hands of a female writer/director. In fact, for something even more gripping about May-December love/lust, check out Audrey Wells’s Guinevere.

Venus

“Put Your Records On" by Corinne Bailey Rae


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