FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL – Review

Annette Benning as Gloria Grahame and Jamie Bell as Peter Turner, in FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics ©

FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL is based on Peter Turner’s memoir of the same name, about his relationship with 40s Hollywood star Gloria Grahame. If one is expecting a biopic on the Oscar-winning Grahame’s career, you won’t find it here. Instead, this is about love and friendship that grew out of a chance meeting and unlikely love affair between an older woman and younger man. Although the affair didn’t last, the fondness did.

Aspiring young actor Peter Turner (Jamie Bell) did not even know who Gloria Grahame was when he met her at a British boarding house the catered to actors. Grahame was appearing in a local theater and although middle-aged, still beautiful. When she asked the young actor to help her practice her dancing, he couldn’t say no. Peter was smitten by the older woman but quickly learned about her mercurial nature when he mentioned her age. Gloria’s reaction suggested she imagined herself as a perpetual 28-year-old and ran in terror from any hint she was aging. Yet, love quickly followed. After a move to New York, love quickly dissipated, through misunderstandings, jealousy and secrets.

Peter had already fallen for the charming sexy older woman when the landlady told him Gloria had once been a Hollywood star but was in decline. “A big name in black and white films, not doing too well in color,” as she put it.

So Peter was shocked to get a call years later, telling him that she had collapsed at a Lancaster theater where she was performing, refused medical treatment and asked only for him. Peter took her back to his parent’s modest working class home in Liverpool.

Gloria Grahame won an Oscar for her supporting role in THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, playing the type of role she often did, what Jamie Bell’s character describes as “a tart with a heart.” She might be best known to modern audiences for her role as Violet in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. However, audiences should not expect to learn much about Grahame’s career in this film. The focus is on her later life and particularly her touching relationship with Turner. This is more Turner’s story, an ordinary guy who meets an extraordinary person, a more universal story in many ways while still unique to them.

Director Paul McGuigan’s previous films include LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN and WICKER PARK. The screen adaptation was written by Matt Greenhalgh who wrote the scripts for CONTROL and NOWHERE BOY, and some of the strengths of those films as personal storytelling surface in this one.

Bell’s performance is what really makes this story. The gifted Jamie Bell is heart-wrenching as Peter, drawing out a complicated array of feelings about Gloria, an elusive soul with a complex history. Annette Benning, in what is more a supporting role, is likewise excellent as Gloria, an opaque person more focused on presenting a certain image, even to the point of self-delusion, than honesty, yet surprisingly charming and charismatic. Despite her flaws, Gloria is surprisingly sweet. She is charmed by Peter’s working class Liverpool home and wins the hearts of his family as she won his. When she needs some care, she wants to be with them. Benning’s performance is just as charming, a far more approachable character than the one she played in last year’s TWENTIETH CENTURY WOMEN. It is a bit surprising she did not garner much awards notice for the character but more surprising that Bell didn’t.

Hollywood does plenty of romances with an older man and younger woman but rarely the reverse. Even then, the older woman is often portrayed as foolish or worse, although older men are rarely shown that way, which makes this (true) story of younger man who truly loves an older woman all the more remarkable, and moving. The real Grahame did have a penchant for younger lovers, which the film touches on, something that society has long accepted for men but not women.

That role reversal gives the film a little feminist boost but that is not the film’s point nor even Grahame’s view. In the film, Grahame’s capacity for self-deceit is startling, and she is more a female Peter Pan (a common syndrome among men) than anything, if a remarkably touching one.

FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL might disappoint someone looking for a Gloria Grahame biopic but this film is a touching, sometimes funny, sometimes heart-breaking, tale about the power of friendship and love, even if it is based on the true story of a real Hollywood movie star.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars