Venus

The Movie:

Maurice Russell (Peter O’Toole) is a 70-something lothario whose fascination with his best friend Ian’s (Leslie Phillips’s) 17-year-old niece Jessie (Jodie Whittaker) leads to a strange and intimate friendship between the old man and the budding girl.

While neither of them are much of a prize in the company-keeping department—he’s demanding and lecherous while she’s belligerent and conceited—somehow the two forge an (almost) sexually mutual bond. He loves to stroke her neck and shoulders…and she lets him. While the subject matter might seem stomach-churning, it’s actually handled quite tastefully, and their relationship proceeds in a natural, if not wholly believable (Jessie really is a little brat) manner.

Even with prickly characters such as these, director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) and writer Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette) still manage to make us truly care by the time the end-credits roll.

Extras:

There’s a restrained, reverent and actually quite quiet yak-track from director Michell and producer Kevin Loader, both of whom offer mostly technical info about the filmmaking process. “Venus: A Real Work of Art” is a 15-minute featurette behind-the-scenes interview with cast and crew. There are also a few short deleted scenes. Not much here in the way of extras, but with a character-driven drama such as Venus, they are just right.