Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool - but they might win awards

I’ve always been slightly underwhelmed by Annette Bening as an actor. Her initial impact in The Grifters (1990) or Bugsy (1991) was incendiary. Here was an actor to capture the imagination; the eye went to whatever she was doing. Lately though, for me, she’s been coasting through a series of unaccountably well-regarded roles in films like The Kids are Alright (2010) or Twentieth Century Women (2016), where she is the very embodiment of first world problems.

However, in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Bening gives what may be the best performance of her career in what may be her most challenging role to date. It is a nuanced, layered, heartfelt performance which is only matched in its ability by that of her co-star Jamie Bell.

The film is the strange but true story of the Oscar-winning actress Gloria Grahame who, her Hollywood career in decline, came to Britain to appear on stage cashing in on her reflected glory. While in London she met Peter Turner, a struggling young Liverpool actor, and they formed a brief but intense relationship which lasted until she eventually succumbed to illness. In between she spent her time with him and his family in his parents’ council house in Liverpool.

This is unfathomable in our age of instant celebrity but, in the pre-Google era, it is entirely convincing that Peter would have to tipped off by a movie buff barman about the status of his date.

It’s a remarkable story and all the more remarkable for the normality with which it is handled by director Paul McGuigan. Gloria does not lord it over everyone in fact, apart from a tendency to treat Peter as a personal assistant at times, she settles in quite well to this working-class lifestyle. It’s implied, through two monstrously effective cameos from Vanessa Redgrave and Frances Barber, that her own family life was something of a nightmare and by contrast the couthy charm of the Turners presents a Scouse paradise.

But at the heart of this film is a tender and touching love story underpinned by two glorious performances. Bening gives a subtlety textured performance in a demanding role. She has to play Gloria as a movie star coming to terms with her decline, she also has to play an ordinary woman coming to terms with her frailty, as well as playing a four-times married woman coming to terms with being in love for the first time in her life. It would be easy to give it the full Norma Desmond here but Bening’s performance is restrained and generous.

The generosity is reciprocated by director McGuigan who shows a real flair for this kind of material after a career dominated by action fare, albeit well-made. There is a moment at the start of the third act, without giving too much away, where Gloria’s fate is revealed, and an apparently inexplicable decision is explained. McGuigan gives Bening the space to flesh out this unreliable narrative with a performance of enormous tenderness which allows her to display the full intensity of her talent. It is a genuine star turn/.

Jamie Bell, reunited with his screen mum Julie Walters for the first time since Billy Elliott (2000), is not overshadowed. This is a rare opportunity for him to play someone roughly his own age in non-fantasy circumstances. He and Bening move together like a Swiss watch with a performance that complements hers completely without ever losing anything of himself.

While we are handing out compliments, a word of praise for the art department. The film tells its story in flash backs and flash forwards and Eve Stewart’s production design is key to allowing the story to unfold seamlessly despite its fragmented structure.

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool has taken a long time to get to the screen. The book was written thirty years ago, and I remember conversations with a leading Scottish film maker twenty years ago about his plans to film it. That filmmaker is not quite so prominent now but there is a certain symmetry in McGuigan, another leading Scottish filmmaker, eventually bringing it to the screen.

It has been worth the wait and, with the right support, this film should be a serious contender in the end of year awards races.