By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Paul McGuigan
Starring: Annette Bening | Jamie Bell | Julie Walters | Kenneth Cranham | Vanessa Redgrave
Country: united_kingdom
Year: 2017
Running time: 105
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5711148/reference
Thom says: “It’s not often that a non big-budget film stars 4 actors who are must-see and the italicized 4 here are all terrific in their roles. Director McGuigan is surprisingly not well-known by me, and yet, amazingly, I’ve seen every single one of his feature films: THE ACID HOUSE (5 CATS, 1998), GANGSTER NO. 1 (4.5 CATS, 2000), THE RECKONING (3 CATS, 2002), WICKER PARK (4 CATS, 2004), LUCKY NUMBER SLEVEN (4 CATS, 2006), PUSH (2 CATS, 2009), & VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN (5 CATS, 2015). Guess who wasn’t paying attention? Anyway, this film is about Oscar winner Gloria Grahame (for her unforgettable turn in THE BAD & THE BEAUTIFUL in 1952) and the time she spent in Liverpool towards the end of her life, two years before she was dragged back to New York to die from cancer. While in Liverpool (she had grown up there) for work (her career had gone into a serious decline) in a stage production she meets a young man that she takes up with and has a serious affair. Taking him back to America their relationship falls apart in a very dramatic fashion, nothing really new here, it’s a story as old as the hills. I was a minor fan of Gloria Grahame an d while Bening looks little like her and there’s no attempt to capture the sex-kitten voice, Bening still inhabits the role carefully with an intense skill level. Bell is very sexy as the young actor who falls under her spell. Vanessa Redgrave has a fine, but brief scene as Grahame’s mother. Julie Walters is barely recognizable as Bell’s understanding mother. 4 cats“