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Venus
Miramax Films


7.3

based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 24 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for language, some sexual content and brief nudity

Starring Peter O'Toole, Leslie Phillips, Jodie Whittaker, Vanessa Redgrave, and Richard Griffiths

An aging English actor finds his life changed by the arrival of a friend's precocious grandniece.

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Hanif Kureishi
DIRECTED BY:	Roger Michell
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 22, 2007 Theatrical: December 21, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	95 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	UK

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Told with wit, genuine poignancy and all kinds of humor, Venus charts the unlikely relationship between a man in his 70s and a young woman more than half a century his junior.

100

New York Post Kyle Smith

A sublime meditation that is one of this year's wisest, warmest and funniest films.

100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Venus is a magnificent tribute to actors by filmmakers who know they are the essential human material of theater and the screen.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

A man can be a treasure just as a work of art can be, and O'Toole is one of the handful of living film actors worthy of a museum of his own. Venus would make a brilliant final exhibit.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Venus may be a leering male fantasy, but it is also, improbably but persuasively, a love story as tender as it is transgressive. It's a wry celebration of the tyranny of beauty, and the tragicomic way in which desire outruns the betrayals of dying flesh.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Venus belongs to O'Toole. This is, hands down, my favorite performance of the year, largely because I love the way O'Toole (and the filmmakers) refuse to yield to the all-too-pervasive idea that it's "icky" for old people to even think about sex.

Newsweek David Ansen

A heartbreaking comedy that is simultaneously funny and sad, raunchy and sweet, funky and elegiac. These fresh, unexpected juxtapositions are a specialty of the writer Hanif Kureishi ("My Beautiful Laundrette"), a sworn enemy of cliché.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

The quiet respect Venus displays toward lions in winter, defanged though they may be, is rare enough; the film's respect for unfinessed lionesses-to-be is rarer still. Wherever they're going, no one here is going quietly.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Venus is rollickingly funny at times -- but there's an undercurrent of extraordinarily clear-eyed sadness.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

The great thing about Venus - apart from its sharp eye for the daily routines and drab details of senior citizenry in a buzzing metropolis - is that it isn't soppy, or sentimental.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Peter O'Toole, looking frail beyond his 74 years, gives what may be his farewell performance as a leading movie actor in Roger Michell's Venus. It's one for the books - and maybe the Oscars, too.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Peter O'Toole, still a British cinematic lion at 74, performs another movie miracle in the Roger Michell-Hanif Kureishi film Venus.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The screenplay is by Hanif Kureishi, who wrote "The Mother" for Michell and also scripted the classic "My Beautiful Laundrette." He has a feeling for outsiders.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

O'Toole is frail and probably won't make many more movies. So Venus is pitched partly as a fond farewell to a beloved artist, and his whole beautiful generation.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Venus is the second film from director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi to explore the sexual lives of folk that the movies treat as sexless -- the elderly. But where "The Mother" was a cold film of sexual greed and emotional pettiness, this robust yet delicate comic drama finds a kind of dignity in the old lothario whose vital life force struggles against a failing body.

Empire Alan Morrison

A screen-acting showcase by a man whose best days, many thought, were behind him. There's life in the old dog yet.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

The amazing thing about Venus is that it's brutally honest about all this but at the same time funny as hell.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Awash in terrific performances.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Since the movie is about desire -- not so much for sex as for the vitality and surprise that sex can provide -- it is also about power. Few writers can match Mr. Kureishi's knowing wit on this subject, or his skill at dissecting the shifting dynamics of longing and domination.

Village Voice Jim Ridley

Maurice, the protagonist of Venus, is a suit lovingly tailored to O'Toole's ravaged but commanding frame.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi take a deeper, edifying interest in the moral ambiguities that arise between Maurice and Jessie. And thanks to our warm investment in both characters, we're more than willing to sign up for this existential ride. We allow this relationship -- and the movie -- to take us places we'd never usually go.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This comedy drama is an exercise in self-indulgence for O'Toole, but an enjoyable and touching one.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

The suggestion that Peter O'Toole is playing some version of his real self in Venus adds a bittersweet poignancy to this quietly affecting British drama.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Like similar English comedies, it also teeters on the mawkish.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Though O'Toole, whose ruined beauty Michell emphasizes in frequent and tight close-ups, and newcomer Whittaker have a striking rapport, the film's most haunting moments pair him with Vanessa Redgrave -- amazingly, this is their first movie together -- as his ex-wife. They evoke a lifetime of love, betrayal, regret and forgiveness in the space of a few lines, then move on without missing a beat.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This is a brave movie because it addresses a subject Hollywood feels uncomfortable about.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

O'Toole gives a staggering performance -- fearless, defiantly untamed and in its own way a work of art.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Peter O'Toole's tour-de-force performance makes Venus a movie not to be missed.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Melancholy but enjoyable.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Genuinely funny, randy and moving by turns, breezily enjoyable throughout.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Venus is worth seeing for the scenes between O’Toole and Vanessa Redgrave as the woman he abandoned--the mother of his children.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Venus has a swank pedigree, but in this case that doesn't mean it's much more than a quaint machine to elicit tears and awards.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Tom M. gave it a6:
Peter O'Toole could very well turn out to be the last remaining master actor of an era that produced an extraordinary variety of stage and screen icons--Olivier, Burton, Richard Harris, Laurence Harvey, to name a few. Hopefully, "Venus" will not be his last call, a somewhat charming tale, but not a truly worthy vehicle for one of film's greatest actors of all time. Newcomer Jodie Whittaker is excellent as the young Venus and Vanessa Redgrave, as always, comes through with a superb performance. A bonus is the infectious soundtrack by British soul singer Corrine Bailey Rae, at times sounding like a genuine reincarnation of Lady Day.

J H gave it a10:
I loved this movie. O'Toole is magnificent and the story was beautifully engaging, hilarious, and tragic. Don't miss this one.

Kent B. gave it a2:
This movie did not deliver as expected. A fair story not reflected on screen. O'Toole overacted and the other actors seemed great. A real waste of time and money mine and theirs.

Linda L. gave it a9:
I was braced for something sad and a little icky. Yes and yes, but "Venus" also is wise and touching and funny. It really makes you think about what's important in life. Also I want to mention the soundtrack -- the music of Corinne Bailey Rae is wonderfully enjoyable.

Chad S. gave it an8:
In a church, Maurice(Peter O'Toole) dances with his oldest and dearest friend, Ian(Leslie Phillips), the one person he's most loyal to. Maurice's adoration for this person isn't a performance like the one he gives for his Valerie(Vanessa Redgrave), his ex-wife. Ever the ham, but so utterly compelling and convincing(his words don't seem processed), he tells Valerie that she's his one true love. But it's all method. His tender emotions bubble up from a wellspring reserved for Jessie(Jodie Whitaker). Even though Valerie is lying, she eats it up. Maurice doesn't truly respect women, but the filmmaker does. In a later scene, she encounters Jodie, and says, "Oh, you must be the one..." Art is a lie. Everything that Maurice said to her was a lie but she's touched nonetheless, and so are we, even though this man is clearly a pig.

Rani C. gave it a9:
It was good. I expected to be disgusted a little and I was. I did not expect to laugh but I did. The movie made me focus on the 90 minutes at hand. I enjoyed the cinematography. I am certainly glad that O'Toole was nominated for his acting. It was a breath of fresh air when compared to the same old recycled stuff that overflows in the theaters year after year.

Suzanne A. gave it a10:
Deeply touching, beautifully written, magnificently acted.

Venus Miramax Films

Venus
Miramax Films