I think O'Toole's character would have been a lot better had they made him a little less creepy. I got mixed feelings because it seemed as though they were trying to portray a grandfatherly feel from him yet he did some things that made me think that if I was Jessie I would have run away and never seen him again. Overall pretty good film with an interesting enough plot and wonderful acting, I just thought they really messed up that element of his character.
shareI thought the girl was most unattractive, horrible accent and behaved really creepy and disgusting.
shareI also agree that the girl was absolutely vile, self-absorbed and pathetic.
shareA lot of people here seem to be judging the movie under a strictly moralistic point of view. Nor Maurice nor Jessie is painted as a role model or a victim. His attraction is totally one-sided and he needs her to feel young again. She's overambitious and ready to grant some of his wishes because it will help her. But the relationship gradually evolves into something more. And the tragedy of Maurice's character, who just can't obtain what he wants, eventually makes him sympathetic to me; I just saw him as a touching and somewhat tender figure. Certainly Peter's masterful performance was one of the main reasons.
shareWHY should he be a creepy old man? His character was a famous actor and he had obviously been a womaniser... do you assume that people just lose their sex drives as they grow old?
And it was not a grandfatherly feeling, he was in love with her and idolised her... and, big shock, he actually talkied to her as if she was a human being! Wow! Breaking the stereotype! If any man made a woman feel so special, worshiped and loved, how could she run away from him. She obviously loved him too and also could not fully deal with all his sexual advances, but she loved him too!
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I agree 100% He wasn't trying to be anyone's grandfather, he was just trying to forget his troubles, make a friend and have a little fun. When his feelings changed, he was just a man being a man, not an old man. I think Jesse fell for his charm, it scared the hell out of her and that's why she ended up with the young scumbag. Too bad, they could have had an interesting relationship and she could have learned a lot from him, maybe even some manners. On a personal note, O'Toole at any age is still perfection. That voice...those hands...those eyes...
shareemmamaria, you're on a few of these venus threads trying to convince anyone who'll listen that we should all sympathise with maurices' predictament. you say he loved jessie, but what about his ex-wife (and their 3 children) who he abandoned for "pleasure" elsewhere. despite outstanding performances by both ms whittaker and mr O'toole and all supporting cast (come to think of it), it shouldn't hide the grooming of a economically deprieved adolescent by an irresponsible, sexually motivated old man.
shareFirst of all.....wow, this was more than a year ago....I'm not even so clear on all the details anymore. But from the language you are using, I am sure I can effectively rehash my argument.
"we should all smpathise with Maurice's predicament" is not what I was saying AT ALL! Don't you recognise what your words are actually implying? My arguement is that by calling him a "creepy old man" or even WORSE "an irresponsible, sexually motivated old man" you are being SO degrading? As is if an older person somehow becomes less human, less sexual, less interested in life, wants less from life or changes his nature (which, as you have pointed out, Maurice cerainly does not).
I am saying that he never hides who he is. He never hides the fact that he is a womanizer or that he left his wife in the lurch with their children. He even comes into some insight over this by telling his ex-wife that he now comes to realise how selfish he was and how much he hurt them all.
I am saying that you are all concentrating on his age and on his sexual persuit of Jessie and that you are missing a vital nuance of the movie and of Maurice's character and motivations. He is dying, he knows it and is it not possible that he is being so forward with Jessie not to get sexual gratification from her, but for her to remember him, for her to grieve deeply when he dies? I find that idea so desperately beautiful and poignant.
I have always understood a Venus to be the epitomy of beauty, but ultimately the beauty that can never be attained. Something that you give yourself over to willingly and with passion, but something you can never fully possess or enjoy. I think Maurice knows this and recognises Jessie's cruelty towards him in this regard. So, in a sense, his persuit of her is a punishment to both himself and to her. Because she is only as beautiful as he makes her to be, and when he dies I think she recognises the loss of this version of herself. The perfect, Venus-like version that Maurice has idealised in his mind and in their encounters.
In short, I think it is completely narrow-minded to call him a creepy old man. It is a convenient way of saying "let's obsess over the less savoury aspects of the movie and therefore not actually have to think about it on any deeper kind of a level".
You're not alone. Peter O'Toole is one of my favorite actors (Lawrence of Arabia, High Spirits, My Favorite Year) but watching this movie really disturbed me. I really don't care to see a dirty old man trying to slobber on a young girl, just pathetic. I bought the movie expecting so much more but will never watch it again for fear of poisoning my opinion of Mr. O'Toole.
shareIt was soooo not grandfatherly. What movie were you watching? You are just biased over age.
Tha Hot Girlz -- THE99 And 4 Eva!
Peter O'Toole is a great actor. One of my favs for many many years.
I felt as though he looked a bit too old for this part. He just looked much older than his actual age. He looked like he had already started to decay.
If he had looked a bit younger (not as decrepit), I think the relationship between he and the young girl would have been more believable.
You can really see how alcohol, smoking and years of hard living have had a not so good affect on the old boy.
Still love him, though.
Cheers.
Wow. I can't believe you people are perfectly okay with an ugly old man attracted to a young girl. It looks like people are agreeing to pedophilia! Just a couple more years till people will start agreeing and accpeting incest.
share>>>I can't believe you people are perfectly okay with an ugly old man attracted to a young girl.<<<
That might be true if she were, in fact, a young girl (as in child).
She may have been a bit immature, but she looked (and acted) like a full grown woman to me.
Their relationship had nothing to do with pedophilia or incest.
I don't think calling Peter O'Toole is very nice...creepy looking, but not ugly!
You know the old saying, "Vice is nice, but incest is best."
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Okay I didn't mean ugly. I was just frustrated with the responses here.
Well, yeah she looks like a full grown woman to me also...but in the movie she was suppose to be a teenager. A teenager is STILL a kid! No, it may not be a child, but you are not an adult at that age!
To me, that is still pedophilia. I don't get it...in countries like Bangledesh girls get married at age 14-18 to really old guys and people complain about that saying how it's so wrong and that Bengali men are pedophilia. Why isn't the same thing being said here?
No, this movie has nothing to do with incest...but seeing how this world has become, people in this board love this movie and have never complained how an old man couldn't find someone his own age and finds a teenager [even though she looked nothing like it]. Seeing how people think pedophilia is okay and just adorable, I won't be surprised when people will begin to think incest is just too cute.
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Of course people can and do have sexual urges throughout their lives. And I plan to act on mine as much as possible until the day I die. Every old person is a young person in an older body. I think as we age, we become more of what we really are from the start.
If you think older people can't be sexy, you've never seen Calendar Girls. And I will always lust after Peter O'Toole and the late Richard Harris. Two more charming and sexy fellows there have never been, nor are there likely to be.
But Maurice just abased himself for a stupid young twit who wasn't smart enough to give a damn until the end. Whether for love or lust, he lost his self-respect.
And Jessie was at least out of school, so that would make her 18. And she was not being taken advantage of - she knew what was what.
The thing was that he was so entranced with love and lust that he was groveling for a kiss. And while she was sometimes charmed by his attention, she used him for what she would (even using his apt as a rent-by-the-hour hotel room) and graciously bestowed tiny physical favors on him as payment.
It wasn't whether there was lust or love, or what age they were. I would not treat or be treated like that by any man or woman of any age.
Just out of school could be 16 if she didn't do A-levels (didn't sound to me like she was particularly educated). But she's still legal.
shareQuite agree, hasn't anyone noticed that Maurice was acting his last part?
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
Good lord, all this pedophilia stuff.
You are aware that the human body is sexually mature at around 13 or 14?
And while our society frowns on sexual relationships with people under the age of about 17 or 18 that does not change the fact that the human animal can (and does) find a human who has gone through puberty to be sexually attractive.
Should a person act on these feelings? No, society says that it is unacceptable. But that doesn't change the human response and desire.
And just because you see this as pedophilia does not make it so.
We're talking about a world that worships Brittney Spears ... until she turns 20 and then craps on her. I'd hardly find this movie to be a surprise.
God, not again with all this crap that desiring teenage girls is okay just because biology says so.
shareLook, by no means could I be mistaken for someone who condones the twisted world of May-December romances/sexual escapades.
However, pedophilia by any factual interpretative definition applies to PRE-pubescent, as in completely PHYSICALLY immature young children, and thus in no way can be used in reference to attraction toward teenagers.
I understand disapproving of, even being creeped or revolted by such a thing but a pedophilia accusation is one far too intense to be thoughtlessly thrown around.
If the man is very old and the girl is under 32, it's pedophilia. Seriously though the only thing I don't like is O'Toole's facelift. His eyes look permanently surprised.
Tha Hot Girlz -- THE99 And 4 Eva!
That's innacurate, it would only be paedophilia if she were under the legal age, which is 16, but moreover - why 32 particularly?
Age is largely irrelevant when it comes to sexual attraction - it goes beyond a person's physical state. People have different tastes and different ideas as to what is attractive and sexy, physically or otherwise.
They were both consenting adults so really it's nobody else's business.
A teenager is STILL a kid! No, it may not be a child, but you are not an adult at that age!
I find all of the responses to this post to be missing the point of the film entirely. Many of these posts read into the film the age of the woman but this is unestablished throughout.
What we do know is:
1. that she was kicked out of her home,
2. that she acts very egotistically throughout most of the film (perhaps a teenage characteristic, but this is not limited to underage women).
3. that she is sexually active and independent in this regard.
4. that she is very good at abeting the beating of convelescent elderly folks to the point of near death.
I for one, did not read her as an "adolescent victim" and she was never sexually abused by ANY of the elderly characters. She allowed herself to have her hand caressed and to be kissed on the neck (albeit for expected economic favors).
The question I have for this list is why the defense of a wretched awful self-centered *beep* against the elderly savior of her as a human being. What does this say about us younger people? Aren't we more sensitive to such things as the fact that desire doesn't go away just because you get wrinkles?
I tend to think that our throw away attitude to the older and wiser and infinately more loving is just disgusting.
—K
did they really have a relationship? Yeah he was lusting over her but I think she stayed there cause she had no place else to go ;)
share[deleted]
Sorry, but I find your post far more offensive than any aspect of the film.
People bandy the word, 'paedophile' around far too much these days; for your info, a paedophile is interested in very young children. Maurice was, at best, an ebophile. People really need to get their heads around this stuff. Ignorance offends many people.
The comment about incest was not neccesary and makes you look reactionary and melodramatic. I bet you vote with your hysterical 'logic', too...
>dirty old man trying to slobber on a young girl
I like that kind of thing -- it annoys people like you.
I'd quite like it if more and more teenagers starting humping geriatrics just to see the look on the faces of tiresome ageist dullards like yourself.
~Iain
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>If an old man like that tried to kiss me and said the things he says to her >like when he was thinking about her body etc then I would call the police
Why? Are you an *beep*
~Iain
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>why do you think, he needs to be locked up to stop him doing it again or before >it gets out of hand
Doing what? Approaching a woman and asking to smell her hand?
~Iain
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>He did more than that
Why would it get out of hand?
When during the film did he do anything wrong, or sinister, or lawbreaching?
~Iain
>made him a little less creepy. I
He wasn't remotely creepy. That's the point. He did everything right.
He did everything not to be creepy.
He was very upfront, and forthright, and honest, and as gentlemanly as is sexually possible.
Right from the outset, he laid his cards on the table and, in effect, said "look, I'm an ugly old geezer who's impotent, so how about it?"
...but he's old, so he'll get called creepy either way. He couldn't win.
What else could he have done to not be creepy?
~Iain
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That is a disgusting allegation, made by an hysterical and peurile individual.
Accusations and insinuations like that can have you arrested. You are an angst-ridden and pathetic little boy that needs to grow up and learn how to talk to real people. I am willing to bet you vote BNP, and hate interracial hookups, too.
I am reporting your vile allegation, and can only hope that your like are barred from here.
He wasn't remotely creepy. That's the point. He did everything right.
He did everything not to be creepy.
...their relationship was supposed to be creepy.Exactly. That's what made it so funny.
Unless you acknowledge the initial creepiness, you miss the theme of their transformation.Correct. And that's what makes it so poignant.
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