(Annette Bening &
Jamie Bell)
Annette Bening and Jamie Bell are sensational in this
unusual romantic drama. (Review by Patrick Compton - 8/10)
This is a strange tale, hardly believable except that it is
true, being based on a memoir written by an unknown Liverpudlian actor, Peter
Turner, about an affair he had with a former Hollywood film star, Gloria
Grahame, who was twice his age.
Grahame was one of the goddesses of film noir in the late
40s and early 50s who memorably starred with Humphrey Bogart in Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place. Ray was one of four
husbands and she made no secret that she was attracted to much younger men.
Grahame also won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Vincente
Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful
(1952) and also got star notices for her performance in Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat.
This movie, however, is not about Grahame’s career, much
less her time as a Hollywood actress. Set during the last three years of her
life (1979-81), it’s essentially about her end-game, when she has an affair
with an unknown young English actor while she is treading the boards in
England, her previous career in the movies all but forgotten.
Annette Bening is the big reason to see this film. The
actress, who wanted to play Grahame for many years, brings her complex
character passionately to life. Although much older than her lover Peter Turner
(Jamie Bell), the sexual chemistry between Bening and Bell positively sizzles,
right from the electrifying moment they meet in a London boarding house and
dance the Boogie Oogie Oogie together.
The film is at its vibrant best in the opening half when the
couple enjoy their love affair and explore each other’s lives, but the tone
grows darker as Grahame falls ill.
Glasgow director Paul McGuigan has collected a wonderful
cast who come together to produce superb work, individually and collectively.
Bening is the biggest star in his firmament and she conveys not only the joy
but also the pain of a life passionately but not always wisely lived. Her Romeo
and Juliet scene with Turner at a deserted theatre in Liverpool is intensely
moving as the film moves towards its grim climax.
Bell (formerly the child star in Billy Elliot) has a more straightforward role but he powerfully
conveys the young man’s devotion, bewilderment and love.
His family in Liverpool are represented by Julie Walters and
Kenneth Cranham who give memorable cameos as Peter’s mom and dad, while
Grahame’s mother and bitchy sister are well played by Vanessa Redgrave and
Frances Barber.
McGuigan and screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh have also
structured the film in a particularly interesting manner, moving the action
seamlessly backwards and forwards in time and from place to place, using a
series of clever, quasi-theatrical editing devices.
Film Stars Don’t Die
in Liverpool opened at Gateway on March 23. – Patrick Compton
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