Kathmandu:

Venus is not a movie about a dirty old man and a sexy girl exploiting him. Peter O’ Toole gives the performance of a life time as an ageing lover who wants to feel love one last time.

Sir Peter O’Toole, who was up for an Oscar but didn’t get one, is by turns impish, vulnerable but mostly fragile. He is an actor awaiting the final curtain head unbowed, Shakespeare tumbling from his lips as he tries to bring some kind of meaning to his affection for a very provincial girl.

Venus is a film about age, loss, the theatre, and last chances, and most of all it is about how

yesterday tries to bring the present into some kind of context.

Betsy Bozdech, the critic, says, “Master thespian Peter O’Toole proves he’s still at the top of his game in Venus, a poignant, complicated tale about mortality and passion. Veteran British actor Maurice (O’Toole) knows that his final curtain call is coming soon. Though he still earns booze and cigarette money playing small parts in TV movies, his heyday is far behind him, and his chief delight is gossiping and reminiscing about the old days with acting crony Ian (Leslie Phillips). But beneath Maurice’s craggy, creaky exterior, the heart of a young rake still beats. That heart gets plenty of exercise when Ian’s grandniece Jessie (Jodie Whittaker) appears on the scene. Fascinated by her youth and rawness, Maurice takes the girl under his wing — and it’s clear even before he dubs her his Venus that his motives aren’t exactly grandfatherly. No innocent herself, she responds by using her sexuality to manipulate him. As each learns more about the other, their complicated relationship twists and turns in ways both predictable and unexpected.

“Whatever else can be said about Venus, it’s undeniably an actors’ movie — particularly one actor. O’Toole gives one of the best performances of his career in a part that seems tailor-made for the acting legend. Whether he’s staring at Jessie with a combination of sympathy and lust, abruptly dissolving into tears of regret during a meal with ex-wife Valerie (Vanessa Redgrave), or sitting on his bed, quietly and sadly alone, O’Toole’s Maurice is a fully fleshed-out, thoroughly lived-in character. The spark he feels when he meets Jessie is clearly the most exciting thing that’s happened to him in a long time.”

Philip Kemp adds, “It’s hard to believe that no one’s offered O’Toole a lead role for over 20 years. At 74 he’s lost none of his charm or screen presence, and the irrepressibly sexy grin makes him dream casting for randy old Maurice. The relationship with Jessie is inevitably platonic, though it’s clear that Maurice would willingly take it further if either she or his encroaching infirmities would permit. Whittaker, more than holds her own in her big-screen debut, gradually letting a wary warmth show from behind her defensive scowl.

“Venus sweetly sustains its autumnal mood, deriving both comedy and poignancy from the numerous indignities of age. ‘There’s a stray chance of impotence and incontinence,’ observes the surgeon booking Maurice in for a prostate op. ‘But you won’t be dead. That’s a result.’ The most touching moment, though, comes when Maurice and Ian follow a boozy lunch at, yes, the Garrick with a wander into St Paul’s in Covent Garden, its walls lined with plaques to departed actors, and waltz gently together to the strains of a string quartet. It is the sound of growing old, gracefully.”