Peter O'Toole del-ivers one of the finest performances of his career, as a silver-tongued actor, in Roger Michell's elegiac coming of old age story.
Any other year, he would unquestionably be collecting his first Academy Award as Best Actor for t
his endearing portrayal of a flirtatious septuagenarian with an insatiable hunger for the ladies.
Unfortunately, Forest Whitaker already has his mitts on the statuette - more's the pity, because O'Toole's work here is astonishing, untouched by mawkish sentiment.
Screenwriter Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette, The Mother) treats the film's pivotal May to December romance between O'Toole's charismatic actor and a 19-year-old wannabe model with tenderness and wit.
The complex and tempestuous relationship between these two seemingly mismatched characters invigorates a man who fears his life is drawing to an inglorious close, and inspires a young woman to believe in herself.
When we first meet Maurice (O'Toole), he is comparing prescription medicines with his oldest chum and fellow actor Ian (Leslie Phillips) during their regular catch-up at the local breakfast cafe.
Ian reveals that his grandniece is coming to stay with him in London.
"I hope she can do a rocket salad or something interesting with fish," he remarks dryly.
The girl, Jessie (Jodie Whittaker), turns out to be no help whatsoever - truculent and domestically inept, she spends her days poring over beauty magazines, clamouring for an escape from Ian's fusty Kentish Town apartment.
The old timer is soon at his wit's end. "It's barely been 24 hours and already I'm screaming for euthanasia!" he tells Maurice melodram-atically.
When Ian is unable to accompany Maurice to the Royal Court Theatre, he takes Jessie instead, and together, they brave the latest shocking play to hit the capital.
At first, Jessie exploits the older man's infatuation - cajoling Maurice into accompanying her on a shopping trip to Oxford Street.
However, as the bond deepens, Jessie discovers a burgeoning affection for her seventy-something protector, who christens her Venus in honour of Diego Velazquez's painting.
Distinguished by O'Toole's tour-de-force portrayal of an ageing cad, Venus is a wryly amusing and extremely affecting portrait of a man reborn, whose adoration of a girl young enough to be his granddaughter is both pathetic and touching.
Maurice's pursuit of Jessie might seem a tad unsavoury were it not for Whittaker's scintillating performance as the sexually beguiling teen and Kureishi's elegant writing.
His screenplay provides an embarrassment of sharp dialogue, especially in the lively exchanges between Maurice and Ian.
The emotional bond between the codgers is touching, reaching an incredibly moving crescendo as they visit the actor's church in Covent Garden and find themselves dancing together to the music of a string quartet.
Vanessa Redgrave is excellent too as Maurice's wife, whom he abandoned (along with their young children) for a co-star many years ago.
Venus is British film-making at its very best.
BLOOD DIAMOND (15) *** When you least expect it, cinema transcends its role as escapist entertainment and manages to spark debate and even change the world.
Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond purports to be a thriller with a conscience, highlighting the trade in conflict diamonds, smuggled out of war-ravaged countries and used to buy weapons.
The film's intentions are honourable but the fast-paced action sequences and starry performances overwhelm any worthy, underlying message.
During Sierra Leone's brutal and bloody civil war in 1999, fisherman Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) watches as rebel forces decimate his village, taking him hostage to work in the diamond fields while his wife son flee for the border.
For weeks, Solomon is subjected to abuse at the hands of Captain Poison (David Harewood), who makes captives sift river waters, looking for gems.
Before escaping, Solomon unearths a priceless pink diamond, which arouses the interest of Zimbabwean smuggler Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio).
Solomon agrees to accompany Danny back to the war zone, only to cross paths with crusading journalist Maddy (Jennifer Connelly), who is writing an article on the underground trade in diamonds for guns.
The three strangers become embroiled in a race against time to retrieve the stone and to reunite Solomon with his loved ones.
Performances are strong - notably Hounsou as the father of great strength and nobility - and DiCaprio holds our attention.
Tension escalates in the final hour when the film reveals itself as a conventional chase movie, with Danny and Archer risking everything, and the script piles on the soul-searching and earnestness.
Bobby (15) *** On June 6, 1968, presidential hopeful Senator Robert F Kennedy planned to announce his intention to run for the White House during a keynote speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
He had just beaten fellow Democrat Eugene Joseph McCarthy in the pivotal California primary and seemed to be on his way to The White House.
As he left the podium and prepared to exit the building through the crowded hotel kitchens, 24-year-old Sirhan Bishara Sirhan shot at Kennedy and the throng of campaign staff and guests.
Emilio Estevez's sprawling historical drama relives events leading up to the shooting through the eyes of 22 fictional characters whose fates intersect that fateful summer's night.
As the minutes tick by until Kennedy's speech, retired doorman John Casey (Anthony Hopkins) enjoys a leisurely game of chess in the hotel lobby with fellow retiree Nelson (Harry Belafonte), while celebrated singer Virginia Fallon (Demi Moore) drowns out thoughts of her unhappy marriage to husband Tim (Estevez).
Downstairs, resident hairdresser Miriam (Sharon Stone) learns a devastating secret about her husband, hotel manager Paul (William H Macy), and kind-hearted girl Diane (Lindsay Lohan) agrees to marry William (Elijah Wood) to save him from going to war.
In the kitchens, the scent of mutiny hangs on the air as the Latino workers, including bellboy Jose, face insults from their bigoted boss.
By the end of the night, some of these characters will be gunned down alongside Senator Kennedy, fighting for their lives in the spotlight.
Estevez maintains a brisk pace and he has a good ear for dialogue, like the jousting between John and Melson: "At least I don't have to get up three time a night to pee," quips one; "At least I get out of bed to have one!" retorts his pal. The writer-director also achieves a pleasing balance between the light-hearted and the melancholy, mindful of the concerns of the era, like when Diane tells her fiancé, "If marrying you tonight keeps you from going to Vietnam, then it's worth it."
With so many storylines to flesh out in less than two hours, some of the characters come off worse than others; some should have been cut entirely - like the Kennedy volunteers who spend the afternoon on an LSD trip - to give other narratives more chance to develop.
Bobby is utterly engrossing but there's a nagging feeling that an even better film was well within Estevez's grasp.
The Fountain (15) *** We live in an age in which people are terrified of getting old. Darren Aronofsky, the cult writer-director of Pi and Requiem For A Dream, ponders immortality and human relationships in this haunting and perplexing love story, set in three different eras.
The Fountain was booed and lambasted by critics when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September last year. The audience's frustrations are completely understandable - Aronofsky's picture is sometimes impenetrable; it's a work of visual splendour and emotion rather than coherence and rigorous logic.
But if you give yourself completely to The Fountain, you are rewarded with a film that has the rare power to stir the heart.
The story, charting one man's quest for immortality, unfolds in 16th century Spain, the present day and 26th century outer space.
Brilliant scientist Tom (Hugh Jackman) is racing against time to save his wife Izzi (Rachel Weisz), who suffers from an aggressive form of cancer.
The head of the research facility, Dr Lillian Guzetti (Ellen Burstyn), fears Tom is spending too much time in the laboratory and too little time with Izzi. Tom begs to differ, convinced that science holds a solution, and he encourages fellow researchers Antonio (Sean Patrick Thomas), Betty (Donna Murphy) and Manny (Ethan Suplee) to explore every possibility. Meanwhile, Izzi is writing a book called The Fountain, in which Queen Isabel (Weisz again) commands a Conquistador called Tomas (Jackman again) to find the Fountain of Youth.
His quest leads to a Mayan temple and a fight to the death with a brave chief.
Meanwhile, a futuristic space traveller called Tommy (Jackman) ascends through the stars in a giant bubble, bound for the Xibalba nebula, the legendary Mayan under-world. Inside the bubble, he tends to a living tree and experiences visions of his late wife (Weisz).
Production designer James Chinlund creates a feast for the senses, contrasting the dark, cold metallic interiors of Tom's research facility with the opulence of Queen Isabel's court and the lushness of the astronaut's bubble as it drifts through space.
Clint Mansell's simple yet haunting orchestral score is among the best music you will hear all year as Jackman and Weisz's various alter egos struggle to let go.
Performances from the two leads are excellent. The memory of Aronofsky's film lingers too, like some wondrous dream.
Also showing
THEM (15)
Beware of things that go bump in the night in David Moreau and Xavier Palud's low-budget horror film, apparently based on true events.
French teacher Clementine (Olivia Bonamy) and her novelist husband Lucas (Michael Cohen) are asleep in their remote house when they sense someone outside the property.
Venturing downstairs to check for intruders, the couple find themselves at the mercy of a gang of faceless attackers, who will stop at nothing to torment them.
SALAAM-E-ISHQ (A TRIBUTE TO LOVE) (Cert TBC)
Six different couples fall in and out of love in Nikhil Advani's ensemble piece. Bombay field reporter Tehzeeb (Vidya Balan) and her film editor husband Ashutosh (John Abraham) are blissfully happy, two years into their marriage.
Their fortunes change in an instant when Tehzeeb is in involved in a tragic accident. In Delhi, taxi driver Raju (Govinda) drives to the airport as he has done for the last 15 years and picks up his perfect woman Stephanie (Shanon Esra) - who, unfortunately, already has a boyfriend.
Meanwhile, in London, publicist Vinay (Anil Kapoor) has raised a family with his wife Seema (Juhi Chawla) and is nicely settled in the capital... until the extremely determined Anjali (Anjana) sets out to seduce him. And what Anjali wants, she gets.
SUBURBAN MAYHEM (15)
Nineteen-year-old tearaway Katrina Skinner (Emily Barclay) is the scourge of her housing estate, driving the neighbours and the local police to distraction.
She desperately needs money to fund an appeal for her brother Danny (Laurence Breuls), who is languishing in jail - money which would be hers if her father John (Robert Morgan) would just drop dead.
So Katrina concocts a scheme to persuade one of her lovers to kill her father so she can use the family inheritance to help Danny.
The full article contains 1850 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
