Venus

Review By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

It has been said time and time again that love and desire are among humanity’s most instinctive needs and it often knows no bounds. Well, now that notion has been taken to incredible new heights with the rather moving British drama Venus.

Maurice (Peter O’Toole) is an aging actor who has seen his best years as a performer long gone and a career relegated to playing sick, elderly men in TV hospital dramas. He spends most of his time now with his longtime friend Ian (Leslie Phillips) engaging in banter about the miseries of being elderly.

Their everyday lives are given a shaking up of sorts when they learn that Ian’s young adult grandniece Jessie (Jodie Whittaker) is coming to stay with him. However, Ian is quickly disappointed as Jessie is a fairly disenchanted stick-in-the-mud with no real aspirations.

Maurice, on the other hand, is rather taken with Jessie’s cynical disposition. He soon prods her with him in an attempt to culture the young woman in England’s rich traditions and show her the very best the city of London has to offer.

The old man quickly makes it obvious that his interest in her is far from purely platonic. But somehow, what the unlikely pair bring into each other’s stolid lives soon blossoms into a very powerful bond.

Venus is undoubtedly one of the more peculiar dramas to have emerged in 2006. While the story of an old man with designs on a barely legal young woman comes off in rather poor taste on paper, the story manages to resonate on screen due to how poignant and often dryly witty it’s told.

What really boosts the material, though, is the fantastic cast who approach it with great elegance. The one who shines the brightest of all obviously is Peter O’Toole’s, with his charming performance as the audacious Maurice, which gave the longtime veteran actor his eighth Oscar nomination.

O’Toole gives with Maurice not only a platform to be outrageously inappropriate and a bit self-deprecating about being elderly, but an incredible quiet and eloquent dignity. Maurice is a man who deep down inside is incredibly self-aware of being in the twilight of his own mortality and the veteran actor ubiquitously reveals in him an air of fragility and tragedy to his character.

The DVD’s picture quality is in the 1:85:1 widescreen aspect ratio, with the sound quality in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. The DVD also contains a trio of special features.

The first feature is audio commentary with director Roger Michell and producer Kevin Loader. While their commentary tends to be a bit dry, they nevertheless provide plenty of insight into how the film was conceived and put together.

Also included are four scenes deleted from the final cut. The scenes are a welcome addition, but they provide little to add to the story.

Rounding out the special features is the behind-the-scenes featurette Venus: A Real Work of Art. It’s a fantastic insight into how the film was conceived and ...