The story of a bond, a love…and the will to live for both.
The opening sequence of the now-forgotten Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool features one of the best introductions to a character in some time. The real-life story of Oscar-winner Gloria Grahame’s final years opens by showing past photographs from her days as a Hollywood starlet, schmoozing with major players while moving over trinkets such as a lighter given to her from Humphrey Bogart. All of this is intercut with shots of lips and eyes being made up as Gloria readies herself to take the stage. The introduction shows the perfect melding of the past, the present, and perhaps the future. It becomes clear almost immediately that the woman in front of us is a star; a great actress and a beautiful, soulful creature. She is a woman admired and adored. As soon as this realization hits, the sequence suddenly ends with Gloria collapsing on her dressing room floor, showing that even the most mysterious and alluring are also human.
Based on the book by Peter Turner, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool tells the story of the then-young Peter’s (Jamie Bell) meeting of the aging Gloria (Annette Bening) and a May/December romance that was full of endless exploration, thriving life and genuine love. When a medical condition Gloria tried to keep secret seems to have worsened, she retreats to Peter’s home in Liverpool and straight into his arms.
How much audiences will love Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool will greatly depend on how they take to the film’s technical aspects and the effects they have. Admittedly, the structure of the story isn’t the sharpest, instantly taking the audience to an already-established part of the couple’s relationship without much backstory and hardly any context at all. A number of scenes move along at too brisk a pace, with Gloria and Peter barely meeting before embarking on their first date. Not helping matters is the constant switching back and forth between periods of time in their relationship and the key moments which charted their course. Even if the transitions between the past and the present are clunky in terms of story, they are handled with the greatest of ease visually, with a hallway in Peter’s family home morphing into the arrival gate at LAX as a beaming Gloria excitedly meets him while sunshine flows behind her. Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is a gorgeous effort in terms of set design, period touches, and colors, with each world the pair inhabit (L.A. New York, Liverpool) containing its own distinct feel. Yet the beauty also manages to reach the film’s tone, crafting a mood which carries its own beauty, gentleness and sensitivity. The film’s unconventional structure robs it of certain narrative points, effectively turning it into more of a film about moments than anything else. However when the movie eventually looks at things from Gloria’s perspective, it’s electrifying and incredibly heartbreaking in a way that’s uniquely its own.
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool wisely doesn’t try to rewrite the love story, but rather explores an unconventional romance and the way it profoundly changed its two participants. The moment the two meet, when Gloria stops Peter in the hallway of their London apartment building once the actress decides to recruit him as her dance partner for her upcoming play, sets the romance into motion. Watching them dance is as interesting as it is captivating, with the audience seeing them become intrigued with each other and connect in a way that transcends age and background. The films shows the relationship Peter and Gloria shared and how it contained its own special magic. As a result, the real world became their enemy, breaking the spell through illness and family interference. The nighttime scene at the beach in which the two confess their past sexual experiences with same-sex partners is met with understanding and acceptance from the other, never changing anything between them. Their’s was a relationship shown to have the power to rise above age and social experience. In the simplest of terms: they just got each other.
I was never really sure if Bening’s switching back and forth between vocal inflections is a result of indecision on her part or a conscious way of illustrating the facade Gloria felt she had to put on as a result of her screen persona. In any case, she’s good, no matter which voice she’s using. Her Gloria Grahame seems effervescent and carefree at first glance, but masks a worldliness, depth and great soulfulness that’s quick to surprise. Not only does Bening physically resemble the actress perfectly, but she manages to carry Gloria’s strength and fragility with her on either side. At times Bening manages this with nothing but the look her face. Meanwhile, Peter is the most sensitive and emotional performance of Bell’s career to date. Never once does his turn as Peter make the audience question or doubt the character’s love and devotion to Gloria. In the process, the actor taps into the pain and joy of love and what it does to a man.
Since its been written about in the past, I don’t feel I’m revealing anything by saying that Gloria’s family eventually came to Liverpool and took her back to New York where she died several hours after arriving. While this fact gives the title its meaning, the film’s moniker also speaks to Gloria’s determination to stay alive for the love she cherished. The same can be said of Peter’s never ending love for her, which carried on long after she’d departed. So often real-life tales of the past can come across as odd or weird simply because they strayed from the safety of conventionality. This is especially true with Hollywood figures where stories such as Gloria’s and Peter’s become pieces of trivia for movie buffs. It’s easy to write those pieces of random weird trivia off as nothing more than that, but this movie uncovers the human side of one such story and unveiled the very real people at the center of it.
