angelophile | Movies to See Before You Die

I've wanted to see this movie for a while - the prospect of seeing Peter O'Toole and Leslie Phillips tackling challenging roles late in their careers interesting me. For me O'Toole is every bit as fine an actor now as ever and I was looking forward to Leslie Phillips proving that there's more to him as an actor than saucy innuendo.

The movie doesn't disappoint on either count and earned O'Toole his eighth Oscar nomination as he plays Maurice, a famous stage and screen actor pushing 90, who's struggling to deal with the loneliness of old age and his increasingly serious health problems. The time he doesn't spend at doctors' offices or willing himself to get out of bed every morning he spends with his cantankerous best friend, fellow actor Ian (Leslie Phillips), reminiscing.

When Ian's great-niece, Jessie, arrives on the scene, supposedly to act as a live-in assistant for Ian, she ends up driving both men crazy, in different ways. Refined Ian finds her manners shocking, repulsive. Maurice the opposite, fascinated by her earthy and blunt attitude. A committed lady's man in his youth, he immediately finds himself in love with her, or at least in love with the idea of her, and the two strike up an awkward, and at times most uncomfortable relationship of sorts.

It's certainly uncomfortable viewing occasionally. This isn't a sweet age-difference romance like Lost in Translation, but neither is it quite as overtly warped as a Lolita fantasy, although there are some moments that are undoubtedly sexual in nature, even if there's no question of them ever consummating an actual sexual relationship. It's as much a movie about impotence, both literal and figurative, as it is about lust. Both Maurice and Jessie are capable of being unsympathetic figures (and both have some very dark moments), but there is a strong heart to the movie as Maurice slowly gets overtaken by ill health and the relationship between him and his 'Venus' grows more caring and the wonderful moments of bittersweet friendship between Maurice and Ian are sensitively handled. Likewise Vanessa Redgrave appears as Maurice's ex-wife is some superlative and touching moments as the pair banter.

It's a surprisingly funny, surprisingly touching movie that also doesn't pull any punches in dialogue or scenes, but manages to avoid being overly sentimental by having wrapping sentimentality in a bristly and curmudgeonly exterior.