Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool - Telluride at Dartmouth
Annette Bening stars as Hollywood leading lady Gloria Grahame in this true story of her May-December romance at her career’s end.
Peter Turner (Jamie Bell), a 20-ish, aspiring English actor, crosses paths with Gloria Grahame (Annette Bening), a once-glamorous movie star seeking a comeback. Despite their age difference, they make an almost instantaneous emotional and sexual connection. Later, as Grahame’s health declines, she calls her old lover in hopes of reconnecting. Bening is superlative in capturing Grahame’s mixture of vulnerability, intelligence and raw sexual appetite—a juicy part that she plays exactly right. Bell is utterly convincing as an ordinary guy who drifts into a situation that’s way over his head. Vanessa Redgrave and Julie Walters co-star, but director Paul McGuigan ultimately entrusts this true-life tale to Bening and Bell, who prove equal to the task. (UK, 2017, 1h 45m)
