March 13, 2007

Old man Maurice (Peter O'Toole) becomes infatuated with Ian's (Leslie Phillips) young, crude and unrefined niece's daughter Jessie (Jodie Whittaker). Jessie has been sent to live and take care of Ian while also trying to make a life for herself in the city. Set in his ways, Ian can't deal or come to understand Jessie's craziness which only causes him stress. Maurice however, embraces it. They build a strange relationship based on him desiring her and she using that to her advantage. At the same time, they learn important life lessons like compassion, beauty, understanding and caring for others.

It's obvious Maurice wants to see Jessie naked...among other things. So everthing he does: the talks, the outings, the suggested job and spending money on her, are all directed towards reaching that goal. The fact it's an old man doing this, makes it more disturbing. Even so, Jessie isn't unaware of all this. She's no saint and no victim either. They definitely use each other, they seem to like it and they become important to each other. So there's no feeling bad for either of them.

At first glance, I didn't like this movie. The dirty old man bit was disturbing to me, even though Jessie played right along with it. There are some funny moments and I can appreciate Ian's death neurosis. However, the movie was very slow and I actually fell asleep somewhere towards the end of it. This would be the 2nd movie EVER where boredom caused a quick nap (the first being Hunt For Red October).

Venus felt like a dramatic version of Grumpy Old Men to me. I maybe alone in that thought, but it's what came to mind. By the end, you do see Jessie's transformation into a more caring person having actually learned something from Maurice. And I went from not liking it to thinking it wasn't completely bad. Even though the acting was good, it wasn't enough to keep my attention. It's a too slow life movie that I could never quite get into.

IMDB: Venus