Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

Whereas 2011's My Week with Marilyn detailed a production assistant's chaste backstage infatuation with ultimate sex symbol Marilyn Monroe, this beautifully made true-life romance is all about a passionate love affair between fading (and ailing) Hollywood beauty Gloria Grahame (a film noir icon in classics like In a Lonely Place and The Big Heat) and jobbing Liverpudlian actor Peter Turner (played by Jamie Bell) in late-1970s Britain. Based on Turner's 1986 memoir about the unlikeliest of May-September couples, director Paul McGuigan's witty and incredibly moving drama not only charts their all-too brief relationship, but also the time when Grahame lodged at the Turner family home in Liverpool after falling ill while touring the UK in 1981. A rare non-Bond production from Barbara Broccoli, it's anchored by a fearless, award-worthy performance from Annette Bening, who displays all of the ageing siren's chutzpah, vulnerability and undoubted star quality without resorting to impersonation. Bell is a fine foil with his most mature work yet, and there's first-class support from Julie Walters, Kenneth Cranham and Stephen Graham (sporting a scary looking hairdo that recalls an old Harry Enfield sketch) as Turner's speak-as-you-find family.