Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool (2017): Little Film, Big Heart

A charming and emotionally resonant, improbable yet true love story about a young man’s May – December relationship with a once famous Hollywood actress, Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool is a little gem of a movie. It stars a terrific Annette Bening (American Beauty [1999], 20^th Century Women [2016]) as the faded star, in perhaps her finest performance since The Kids Are All Right (2010), and Jamie Bell, best known for playing the title role in Billy Elliot (2000), in a deeply nuanced, award-worthy turn as the young man, Peter. For fans of great acting, this movie is highly recommended, as the entire ensemble is terrific.

As is the story - by turns sweet, funny, romantic, poignant, compassionate and memorable. It is based on the 1986 memoir (same title) by Peter Turner, recalling his affair with Gloria Grahame which began in 1978, when he was 26 and she was 54. Although Peter was unaware of her celebrity when they met, Grahame was, as a character in the movie put it “a big name in black and white films. Not doing so well in color.” Indeed.

Two other movies came to my mind when I first read about Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool; however neither is at all apt.  First, I thought of Sunset Boulevard (1950) because of the young man - aging actress angle, but Film Stars is not gothic like Sunset Blvd, and the relationship between the principals is not treated as grotesque (because it’s not). Then My Week With Marilyn (2011) came to mind for the young guy spends time with sexy, glamourous star aspect of the story; except the love story here is not a fleeting (if impactful) moment, but a deeply important part of both lovers’ lives.

Who was Gloria Grahame, you ask? During her heyday, which stretched from the late 1940s well into the 1950s, she was a household name – nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role in Crossfire (1947) as a sassy bargirl peripherally caught up in a murder investigation, and then winning the award for playing Dick Powell’s vivacious Southern belle wife in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). She held her own opposite Humphrey Bogart in my favorite Grahame film – also one of my favorite Bogie pictures: In a Lonely Place (1950); and was the tough moll to Richard Widmark’s psychopath hood in The Big Heat (1953). Others may remember her as Ado Annie Carnes, the girl who “caint say no”, in the film adaptation of Oklahoma (1955). Soon after that, however, her star began to dim – age (she turned 37 in 1960, ancient by Hollywood’s standards for actresses); a maverick reputation; scandals fueled by her libidinous spirit - all contributed. But she kept on acting in live theater, although increasingly in less than marquee venues. In her 50s she was working smaller scale productions in the UK, which is how Peter met her.

Both were staying at the same London rooming house. He was an aspiring actor, she a veteran, struggling to stay in the game. They became friends, then lovers. One of the appeals of Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is how natural this seems, despite their age disparity, and the differences in class, background, experience and nearly everything else about Peter and Gloria. Bening deserves much of the credit for making this work; her delightfully ebullient Gloria is so altogether charming and alluring, Peter can’t help but fall in love with her. Neither could I (nor most of others in the audience, I’d wager). And credit Bell as well, for we see all of this through his character’s eyes – and his eyes are incredibly expressive.  Unlike a lot of modern romantic pictures, this one actually allows us to watch the love relationship develop, so we feel like we are falling in love along with the characters. Credit the intelligent and evocative screenplay by Matt Greenhalgh and the skill of director Paul McGuigan, as well.

Most romantic stories – be they novels, plays or motion pictures – follow a time-proven formula laid out by Shakespeare’s Lysander four hundred years ago: the course of true love never did run smooth.  Accordingly, we expect setbacks, perhaps even a break-up, while anticipating that somehow there will be reconciliation, maybe even happily ever after or something like that. This is more a tale of love and loss.

As I’ve mentioned, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is an adaptation of a memoir, written some years after the fact. It is a reminiscence and feels like it. Doubly so, actually, because while the meta-perspective is Peter’s remembrance, the film itself begins in what might be called the third act, then doubles back to the events of the first act (how Peter and Gloria meet and fall in love) and second act (how their love affair plays out).

The picture starts in 2001, a couple of years after the pair has broken up, when Peter gets a phone call from Gloria. In the UK for a touring play, she has suffered a collapse. She claims that it’s nothing serious and does not want medical treatment as the medicos are suggesting; rather she hopes she can stay at his family’s home in Liverpool to recuperate, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble. She’d be more comfortable there than in hospital – and she always felt close to his family.  Peter agrees and goes to get her and bring her home. He soon learns that her condition is more serious than she has described. This is the vantage point from which the story is told, albeit with frequent, quite creative flashbacks to 1978 and 1979. The non-sequential narrative is beautifully and seamlessly rendered, not at all confusing, and adds a richness and depth of feeling to the conclusion.  

The transitions from the “present” to the past are artful and creative. For example, Peter might walk through the front door to the family’s Liverpool home and come out in a scene recalled from their relationship: Gloria’s New York apartment two years earlier perhaps. Some reminiscence scenes are designed to look rather like a moment in one of Grahame’s classic films. For instance, when Peter and Gloria are on the beach outside her Malibu home, the background ocean is rendered using the (once common, now archaic) technique of background projection – as in a key sequence from In a Lonely Place. It’s not so much a distraction, as a sort-of bonus point of interest.

Using Peter’s perspective for most of the movie (one very key sequence is actually presented twice, first as he experienced it, then several minutes later from Gloria’s point of view), works to provide us with a way in to knowing and understanding the complicated person that was Grahame. Another way in comes when she takes Peter to meet her mother (marvelous Vanessa Redgrave) and sister (Frances Barber) in L.A. This turns into a particularly dazzling moment as two great actresses, Redgrave and Bening, play off each other, and then Barber, as the disapproving sister, pointedly brings up a scandal from Gloria’s past – her affair with and eventual marriage (her 4^th) to her much younger stepson – primarily out of spite and, not incidentally, to shock Peter.  

Speaking of family, Peter’s working-class home and family – as an ensemble - must count as another star of Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. Grahame must have been drawn to these unassuming, salt of the earth folks in her earlier romance with Peter – so different from the artificial, often insincere strivers of Tinseltown. They treat her as a human being, not a celebrity (or a has-been). Especially wonderful in this movie is Julie Waters [Educating Rita (1983), Billy Elliot, and of course Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter movies] as Bella, the warmhearted, no-nonsense matriarch of Peter’s family. The veteran actor Kenneth Cranham as her ineffectual husband, Joe Senior, and Stephan Graham (Boardwalk Empire) as Peter’s brother Joe Jr, needling his brother for being a poncey actor, while secretly admiring him. Getting to know these people and this place, we understand why Gloria chose to come to them in her hour of need.

But the film ultimately belongs to Bening and Bell. Bening is always good and occasional great. It was a pleasure but not a surprise to find that she is remarkable in this picture. Despite having seen her in multiple roles in several previous movies, in this one the actress simply disappeared and became Gloria Grahame. Yet, the real discovery is Bell. Peter is the true protagonist, and it his response to the unfolding events that connects us to the story and ultimately makes it work.  Bell’s performance is a revelation. His face is so expressive, he shows us so much wordlessly, and the range of his emotional responses is, by needs, so great – I felt Peter’s wonder and thrill at falling in love and, along the way to the denouement, a panoply of emotions from fascination with Gloria, to his confusion, delight, anger, sorrow, and so much more as the tale played out. Quite extraordinary.

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool has received a mixed response from other critics. Some laud it for the great performances and its exquisite emotional punch. Some criticize its “generic weepy” quality. It has just been nominated for three BAFTA awards – best screenplay, best leading actor and best leading actress, and has received similar recognition from other awards programs. So we’ll see.  I found it a pretty special movie – much in the way that The Big Sick was a wonderful and special movie. Yes, a bit weepy, yet anything but generic. It’s a little film with a big heart. And if, hopefully, it encourages a new audience to see the films and appreciate the legacy of the great actress Gloria Grahame, all the better.

105 minutes                Rated R

Grade A

Currently playing in New York and L.A. 

Opening in select theaters January 12, 2018, including the Clay in San Francisco, as well as Scottsdale, Chicago, and Costa Mesa, Encino and Pasadena CA;  Opening January 19 in select theaters around the SF Bay Area, greater New York, Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and throughout Florida. Continuing on a rolling release schedule thereafter. Check for your location HERE (use the “Get Tickets” button)  

Call Me By Your Name (2017): A Summer of Love

A beautifully evoked, lusciously rendered story of a young man’s first true romance and of his coming of age sexually, emotionally and otherwise, Call Me By Your Name is an elegant, winsome movie, by Italian director Luca Guadagnino [I Am Love (2010), A Bigger Splash (2015)], with an intelligent, intimate screenplay by James Ivory [A Room With A View (1985), Howard’s End (1992)]. It is based on Andre Aciman’s heralded novel by the same name, published in 2007, which took the form of a man’s recollection or reminiscence from twenty years on of a particularly formative experience of his youth. The movie does not adopt the first-person perspective per se, but retains the feel and subjectivity of a remembrance.   

It’s the summer of 1983. The boy is Elio (Timothée Chalamet, also featured in this season’s critically praised Lady Bird), a precocious seventeen-year-old child in an accomplished, rather international family – American father (Michael Stuhlgard), British-Italian mother (Amira Cazar) – summering at their family estate in bucolic Northern Italy. It is a warm, lush place abounding with beautiful, friendly people and gorgeous natural scenery. A nice place to film a love story and a perfect place to fall in love.

Professor Perlman, Elio’s father, is a historian of classical art, who hosts a young assistant every summer; and this year it’s an American graduate student named Oliver, played by Armie Hammer [ The Man From Uncle (2015), Nocturnal Animals (2016)]. Oliver is bright, charming, easygoing in a very American manner, and very, very beautiful. Yes, even an old heterosexual male like me cannot help but notice how hunky and gorgeous this guy is. The ladies in the movie certainly notice.  And so too does Elio. Although there’s something like a ten-year age difference between them, he and Oliver strike up a friendship. Then it turns into something else – something very hot and very special.

One of the cool things about Call Me By Your Name is the way that it treats Elio’s attraction to Oliver (and vice versa) as a completely natural thing - not something shameful, tawdry, or particularly unusual. None of the principal characters explicitly or implicitly suggests otherwise – not even Elio’s parents. Even so, it’s 1983 and Oliver and Elio understand that in the little Italian village nearby many folks would be disapproving of an openly gay relationship – so they carefully avoid public kissing, hand-holding or other displays of affection (an acknowledgement of religious and cultural attitudes – not legal ones. Same-sex sexual practices have been legal throughout Italy since the late 19^th century).

The film is neither lascivious nor polemical. It’s just a fine rendering of a traditional love story, about a special moment of sexual awakening and the twining of two souls.  While it does not shy away from depicting the physical nature of the resulting relationship, it does this much like any film about heterosexual love would these days – there’s skin, there’s touching and intimacy of the R-rated variety, not NC-17 or pornographic.

What is unusual, in my experience anyway, is that the film is about a boy’s sexual awakening. More films than I can count have been advertised on the theme of a female’s sexual awakening -  no doubt appealing to the prurient interest of male producers or directors who presume the public (or at least teen boys and young men) will pay to see that sort of thing. But outside the confines of so-called gay cinema, the first rousing of sexual love in a young guy – particularly homosexual love – has been pretty uncommon in a commercial film. Slowly, but clearly, the times they are a’changin’.   

(I should note here that it is not at all clear in Call Me By Your Name whether Elio or Oliver is gay or if one or both are bisexual. We know that both have been involved with the opposite sex. I’m not sure it matters.)

As I’ve already said, this picture is beautiful to watch. It was shot entirely on location and the scenic locale surely helps: the deep blue of Lago de Garda; afternoon sun over a sparkling pond; bicycling through an ancient, colonnaded ochre and straw-colored village; young folks lounging on the grass by the villa pool, itself set against a lush green forest; casual family breakfast out on the tiled patio under a leafy bower; and so forth. Much credit is due to the director of photography, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, who was able to capture the golden Lombardy summer light of these and other scenes so gloriously. The interior scenes initially look and feel claustrophobic with the suppressed, burgeoning passion (and related anguish) experienced by Elio, and then intimately erotic once this blossoms into a fulfilled love. The feel and pace of the film as a whole is unhurried and pleasantly langorous, allowing the story and the relationship to build bit by bit.

Director Guadagnino considers Call Me By Your Name to be the final segment of a trilogy of pictures commencing with I Am Love and A Bigger Splash. “What links these three films”, he says, “is the revelation of desire.” In the first two, following desire resulted in some dark and/or regrettable outcomes; but here the consequence is more positive. This movie is a “beautiful acknowledgement of how you change when you love someone positively”, Guadagnino adds.

Key to the movie’s success is the lovely, complicated performance by Timothee Chalamet as Elio. It’s a difficult role, as Elio is a complex character, whose circumstances and emotions are in a state of flux. He’s a teen sullenly facing a summer away from his friends; he’s also an inquisitive intellect; a musical prodigy; and a cosseted only child; and as the action advances he struggles with a confusing newfound desire is flooded and nearly overwhelmed by love’s rapture; and eventually must face it’s loss. He embodies the character so completely, we believe Chalamet IS Elio It’s a far bigger and more challenging part and a character totally removed from his pretentious “Kyle” in Lady Bird. Definitely an award-worthy piece of work, it is worth seeing Call Me By Your Name for Chalamet alone.

With all the above going for it, I must admit that I never fully engaged with Call Me By Your Name on an emotional level. As I watched, I always felt like an observer. I suspect that this has to do with Guadagnino’s directorial style – as I felt similarly about the otherwise excellent I Am Love, too. I admired both movies, but I never fell all the way in with them. I can’t quite put my finger on why this is.

With this new picture, however, a couple of other reasons for my emotional remove do stand out. The biggest one has to do with co-star Armie Hammer. He’s been getting a fair amount of praise for his work in Call Me By Your Name including nominations for best supporting actor by the Golden Globes and others. And taking on this role was a courageous thing for Hammer.  Yet when Josh Duboff of Vanity Fair started his profile of the actor with this line: “Armie Hammer is the sort of actor who, at all times, looks like he’s stepped out of a cologne advertisement”, I think he hit the nail on the head. He’s pretty, but he’s bland, anodyne. Most egregiously for an actor in a meaty role like Oliver, he has little in the way of emotional expression. As the socially comfortable, attractive guy he’s fine – his manner, body language and attitude are perfect. But as a guy who, to his own astonishment is falling into a passionate love affair with a relative kid, and who is experiencing one of the most meaningful moments in his life – he falls flat, he’s just too, um, did I already say bland? The screenplay has him acting as a mentor of sorts to Elio – very caring and sensitive, and sharing in the exultation of love; but watching Hammer, I never felt he was fully there, and certainly never believed for a moment that he was flooded with love, passion or any other significant emotional response. Chalamont has to act for both of them!

A lesser flaw, but still an important one for me, has to do with the music. Most of the soundtrack in Call Me By Your Name is great and appropriate for the time, place and circumstances – including classical music from composers like J.S. Bach, Eric Satie, Maurice Ravel, and John Adams. At one point the pop/dance song “Love My Way” by the Psychedelic Furs shows up, just right for the time and the situation (it was an international hit in 1982). But director Guadagnino is also a big fan of singer–songwriter Sufjan Stevens, and so chose to include three of his songs as well, two of which were written expressly for the film. That was three too many. Guadagnino says, “I think Sufjan’s songs add another voice to the film. They are kind of like a narration without narration.” Therein lies the problem. The “other voice” is not the director’s voice, nor the screenwriter’s voice. All three songs felt totally out of synch with the film musically, lyrically and emotionally. All three were jarringly off – thus interfering with the mood which had been carefully constructed by the rest of the creative team.  (Even the last one, called Visions of Gideon, which played over the closing credits, was annoyingly anachronistic with its refrain of “Is it a video?”)  

So it’s not perfect. That said, Call Me By Your Name is a beautiful film that deserves to be seen: a lovely movie about falling heart and soul in love, that fell a little short of grabbing my heart and soul.

2 hours 12 minutes

Grade B+

Currently in very limited release; Opening in select additional theaters around the country December 22, 2017.