Venus

Directed by Roger Michell

There’s the temptation to spend this entire review defending Venus against critics who, filtering their visions of this fine film through their own prejudices and intolerance, will see it as a dirty-old-man-groping-a-young-girl exploitation story—albeit one that’s scantily clad in whatever respectability Peter O’Toole and a supporting cast of classically qualified actors can bring to it. That view is small-inded and pitiful, and whoever sticks with it will miss the profoundly moving experience of watching the great O’Toole—now 74 and still remarkably handsome—playing Maurice, an elderly, almost-has-been actor who’s looking desperately for love to  recapture the sense of vitality that he felt during his youth.

Maurice’s spirits rise when he becomes intrigued by and falls in lust with the young and naively cunning Jessie (Jodie Whittaker)—a troubled teen who’s a cross between Lolita and Miss Hoyden. She possesses a street-smart toughness and has moved to London from the ’burbs to become a model while taking care of—or to mooch off of—her great uncle Ian (Leslie Phillips), another aging actor in Maurice’s circle of friends.

In this exaggerated April-December love story (the girl’s way too young to even be a May), Maurice befriends Jessie, finds her a modeling gig—sitting in the nude for an art class—and then tries to steal a glimpse of her nakedness through the studio’s transom. He nicknames her “Venus” after the famous painting. And, yes, although he’s sexually impotent, Maurice does cop a feel of her now and again. But O’Toole does it in such a tentative, adolescent way—that’s so imbued with hope and longing—it’s heartbreaking.

Is their mutually exploitive, unrequited sexuality discomforting to watch? Yes. But, it’s also entirely appropriate for the story. If you allow yourself to follow O’Toole’s magnificent performance to that place of truth about aging, that place where fears about being alone, forgotten, ineffectual, unable to care for yourself abound and where you can still feel the spirit of your youth but lack energy to access it, Venus can change the way you think about the elderly, their needs and outlook.

Jessie teases Maurice, and she plays him, trading little touches and nuzzles for pretty trinkets and good times—until she finds herself genuinely caring for him, worrying about his physical frailty. He’s become her mentor, and she knows she needs him to better herself. Theirs is an intimate, suggestive relationship based upon an unusual, unhealthy symbiosis, but through it, they help each other reach some degree of fulfillment.

Newcomer Jodie Whittaker’s performance is stunning, and she proves a great match for O’Toole. Together they capture the humor, truth and strangeness of their romance, which make this film worth seeing. Movies about aging are a hard sell in our youth-oriented culture, and director Roger Michell and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi deserve kudos for taking on the subject and delivering such a provocative and moving film.