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Shelf Beauties
by Willie Waffle
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Venus
Sentimentality
plays a huge role in reviewing movies and
voting for the Oscars. Peter
O’Toole
must be hoping both will influence how people view his new movie Venus,
which
has him in the running for a Best Actor nomination at the Oscars, but I
can’t
figure out why (Personally, I think Sacha Baron Cohen will upset
O’Toole and
take the fifth nomination, but we’ll find out if I am right
on January
23).
O’Toole
stars as Maurice – a once great matinee idol and respected
actor, who now takes whatever roles he can to help support his
estranged wife,
Valerie (Vanessa Redgrave). When
not
working, he spends the day hanging out with his best friend, Ian
(Leslie
Phillips), who, like Maurice, is going through the physical and
emotional
struggles of growing old. To
help Ian, his
niece has sent her daughter, Jessie (Jodie Whittaker), to serve as a
nurse, but
it becomes quite apparent early on that Jessie has been dumped on Ian
because
she is a troubled young gal. Soon,
Maurice and Jessie start a very strange relationship that is part
romantic,
part father-daughter, and part weird (a very big part weird).
Where is this all going?
What impact will Maurice and Jessie have on each other’s
lives?
Venus
wants to be Lost
in Translation, but isn’t as
compelling, tender, or emotional.
Instead,
it is about 10,000 times creepier.
Director Roger Michell seems to be struggling to
find a rhythm for
Venus,
and O’Toole and Whittaker rarely connect in a way that makes
you think
the two could have any feelings for each other.
Quite to the contrary, writer Hanif Kureishi makes
Maurice and Jessie overly
boorish. Maurice
revels in having a
young lady around, paws at her, and always puts the kid in embarrassing
situations, while Jessie is quick to accept Maurice’s
financial gifts or use his
lascivious interests to her advantage.
Michell and Kureishi want us to like these two
people, but it’s hard
given what we see on the screen.
Worst of all, it’s darn near
impossible to look at O’Toole
and not feel some combination of pity and revulsion.
He is one of the greatest actors of our time,
yet, I will walk away from this movie wondering why it looks like he
hired
Sharon Stone’s botox guy, and Joan Rivers’ plastic
surgeon. It is
difficult to look at his exaggerated
expression and take him seriously as his face is pulled tighter than a
drumhead,
and he comes off looking ghastly instead of regal.
While O’Toole finds a few moments to
remind
the audience he can command the screen, he spends most of the movie
puttering
around the set like a befuddled man, or reducing himself to the role of
pervert.
Michell and Kureishi briefly
explore the themes of growing
older and facing mortality, but not in enough depth for it to matter.
Venus
is a shadow of what it could have
been.
1
Waffle (Out Of 4)
Venus is
rated R for lanuguage, some sexual content and brief nudity.
Copyright
2007 - WaffleMovies.com
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