I loved this romantic story based on the memoir of Peter Turner, an English actor who dated American film star Gloria Grahame, almost 30 years his senior, in the late 1970s. Jamie Bell and Annette Bening are spectacular in the leading roles (last blogged for Snowpiercer and 20th Century Women, respectively) and Bell gets to show off some of those dancing chops he first displayed in Billy Elliot (2000) in an early scene completed in just two takes. Julie Walters (who played Billy Elliott's dancing teacher and was most recently in these pages for Brooklyn) is no slouch as Peter's Liverpudlian mum and Vanessa Redgrave has a terrific cameo as Grahame's mother. I just learned that Turner also has a cameo, as a character named Jack. I can't find any stills of him in the movie, but I suspect that he plays the stage manager in a very late scene.
Director Paul McGuigan (I don't think I've seen any of his features) works from a screenplay that Matt Greenhalgh (Nowhere Boy) adapted from Turner's 1986 memoir.
Cinematographer Urszula Pontikos provides beautiful images and the editor and director orchestrate seamless transitions between time periods.
J. Ralph (not mentioned for scoring the documentaries Man on Wire nor Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child) is the composer but I can't find clips and he hasn't updated his own website to include this project. However, you're much more likely to remember the pop songs (here's a spotify playlist), including Boogie Oogie Oogie by A Taste of Honey, California Dreamin' by Jose Feliciano, and Pump It Up and You Shouldn't Look at Me That Way by Elvis Costello, the latter composed specifically for this picture.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are unfairly tepid, averaging 79 and 70%. I recommend this highly and Jack would, too, had he been able to join me last week!
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