Watch Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool For Free

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Despite it being a true story and brilliantly acted by all, particularly Bening, two hours of watching an aging actress die does not constitute entertainment.

Based on a true story: In the late 1970s, Hollywood star Gloria Grahame (Annette Bening) is in her fifties and performing in regional theatres in Great Britain. She hooks up with Peter Tanner (Jamie Bell), another actor who is a generation younger than she is.Both Bening and Bell are powerful in their roles especially Bening. Whether she is doing strange verbal exercises to prepare for a performance or showing signs of declining health, she is moving and easily draws in the viewer. She is fully believable as someone who can be very naive while drawing sympathy and understanding. Bell also has a powerful scene when he is receiving difficult news on the telephone. As the viewer cannot hear what is being said on the other line, he makes it very clear with each gesture just how bad the news is.Peter's family also provides warmth, welcoming Gloria as a part of the family without batting an eye at the age difference between the lovers. As the family matriarch, the wonderful Julie Walters is a beacon of kindness.Where the film weakens is in the connection between the two lovers. While the actors are great individually, they don't fully connect together. There is a scene in which Peter fights with his brother over how the family should handle their ailing guest. The scene was forced, unbelievable, and over-the-top.Yet the movie is still worth seeing. With all the debate about how women are treated in the film industry, this film deserves credit for giving a substantial leading role in a feature film (not one immediately relegated to television) to a talented, experienced actress over fifty (keep in mind Bening also starred in last year's "20th Century Women").

"Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool" (2017 release; 107 min.) is a movie about the last years in the life of actress Gloria Grahame. As the movie opens (and Elton John's "Song For Guy" plays in the background), we are told it's "Liverpool, England, 1981" and we see Gloria applying make-up and getting ready for a theater performance. But she falls ill. She reaches out to Peter Turner in nearby Liverpool and asks if she can come stay at his mum's house. Peter agrees. We then go back in time to "Primrose Hill, London, 1979", and we see Peter running into Gloria for the first time. At this point we are 10 min. into the movie, but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: this is latest from Scottish director Paul McGuigan, best known for "Victor Frankenstein". Here he brings the real life memoir of Peter Turner to the big screen. Turner met faded film star in the late 70s when he was 28 and she was twice that age. i shan't say more (biting my lips). Let's be very clear about one thing: leading actress Annette Bening is absolutely fantastic in this movie. You might think that, having been criminally overlooked in last year's Oscar nominations for he outstanding work in "20th Century Women", the Academy would be a bit more careful this time around. But no. Bening is once again robbed by the Academy, which instead once again lazily gave another nomination to Meryl Streep for her ok (but by no means outstanding) work in the very medicore "The Post" (an "All President's Men" wanna-be that is nowhere close to that gold standard). Jamie Bell is equally up to the task, but has nowhere near the stature or screen presence of Bening. Vanessa Redgrave appear in one scene. The movie's set production (recreating the late 70s/early 80s) is immaculate. Last but not least there is a lot f great music in the film, both as to the score and the song placements."Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool" has been gradually expanding over the last 2 months, and it finally opened last weekend at my local art house theater here in Cincinnati. The Sunday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended okay (about 15 people or so). Other than the very basic premise of an older woman's relationship with a younger guy, I knew nothing about the movie beforehand, and I ended up enjoying this quite a bit more than I had expected. But it the end, this film is really about Annette Bening's outstanding performance, and that alone is worth checking this out, be it in the theater, on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray.

Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool (2017).Chipper F. Xavier, Esq.The premise: Peter Turner (Jamie Bell) & Gloria Grahame (Annette Bening) fall in love. The catch: Peter's a 28 year-old Brit and Gloria is a much older American actress with four ex-husbands and four grown children. She's also a bit of a has-been: An Oscar winning, movie star icon from the days of black and white films. But by the end of this movie, you will believe in the power of their love for one another.Inspired by the autobiography of Peter Turner, Film Stars walks us through the whimsical meeting, courtship and relationship of Turner and Grahame from 1979 through 1981. Director Paul McGuigan sets his opening in Liverpool, England where the two first meet. Rather than romanticize the aged actress, Bening's Grahame is a gutsy dame, just barely held together by cosmetics, alcohol, wardrobe and slowly fading hauteur. Bell's Turner is an energetic young man who is enraptured with Grahame before he discovers her prior fame. The strength of Bell's performance lies in normalizing Turner's seemingly inexplicable attraction to a woman old enough to be his mother - their first kiss is as surprising as it is heart-warming. In this sense, the couple present an idealistic love which refuses to acknowledge its anachronistic nature.Film Stars goes well beyond the Hollywood romance tropes to present us with the unvarnished heart of humanity. Grahame's and Turner's families, performed by Vanessa Redgrave and Julie Walters, are skilfully woven into the tapestry of their relationship in a way that makes us see just how grounded in reality this movie is: Their problems are real, and seemingly insurmountable.The real feat of Film Stars is not in delivering Peter and Gloria's romance to the viewer, or even in presenting an oddity for the world to brazenly ogle, but in transporting the audience into their time and lives and making us wish that we could all be so fortunate to experience such a love, if only once, no matter what it cost us.