Growing old, with grace.

Venus (Roger Michell, 2006) 

I was running my fingers over 2006 films that I wasn’t able to talk about in my other blog and was surprised there were quite a few good ones that I thoroughly enjoyed or liked. I’d pick Venus first mainly because of Peter O’Toole, or who, by now, we would refer to as the biggest Oscar actor-loser of all time after losing to eight nominations, without counting his lifetime achievement citation. But hey, anybody who is sane enough would know that the Academy doesn’t always get things right, or as I would later realize, that your personal favorites would seem a bit more sound and justifiable.

I laid my cards with Forest Whitaker, who played with such demonic gusto the character of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, because Leo was nommed for Blood Diamond and not The Departed and most importantly, because I was yet to see Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson and O’Toole in Venus. Gosling was a revelation in Half Nelson, but O’Toole should have nail this one with his heart-felt portrayal of Maurice, an aging actor who’s kept young by his vivid memories and the qualities of a dashing debonair unwithered by time. In Scotland, Whitaker is matched though not totally by James McAvoy. In Venus, O’Toole graces the frame like a familiar playground and steals the swing, the seesaws and the slides. I can only remember him as Lawrence of Arabia – which feels like I’ve watched it when I was 2 — but despite the glaring distance of both performances, O’Toole works it well even if he only manages it with a playful wink or lustful sneer.

His apple of the eye is Jessie, played by Jodie Whittaker in her debut, the niece of his long time buddy and co-actor, Ian (Leslie Philips) who moves to London with him to pursue modeling (which Maurice mistakenly hears for yodeling). Ian is annoyed by her but Maurice sees her as entirely different – lovable and charming. With the absence of Ian’s supervision, Maurice becomes her guardian, her tour guide and her confidante. Their unlikely and unique friendship, though at times one-way, is the platform for their character exploration, though Jessie’s feel inferior to that of Maurice, and also because of the obvious disparity between the two.

What at first sight may feel a happy-go-lucky mood is actually a venture into the depths of longing and Maurice’s erstwhile stardom lay the groundwork for this trip-to-the-old-familiar. What I think two of the films most poignant scenes are dominated by O’Toole. The first one –which turned my face red from laughing –where he peeps into a nude painting session by climbing through an unlocked door which swings and exposes him characterizes the jovial mood, his youth. The second one which shows his maturity is basked in reverie. This is during his long walk passing by tombs of old actors like himself who have ‘gone ahead’ which ends with him savoring the familiar scene of an old, run-down theatre –the world he used to dominate.

There is so much to ‘feel good’ in the film that diverts from the usual romanticism –one particularly where Jessie gets her upper body out on the roof of Maurice’s limo unaware that Maurice is ogling her legs, while Corrine Bailey Rae’s Put Your Records On is played. It’s lustful but doesn’t strike one as lewd nor does it celebrate Maurice’s dirty-old-man. Writer Hanif Kureishi has succeeded in crafting a story that is both heartwarming and poignant. Directed by Roger Michell, whose Notting Hill I admittedly haven’t watched yet, Venus is a different kind of love story, one that doesn’t require a Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore or an ordinary-girl-falls-in-love-with-a-famous-guy stuff for it to click.