Annette Bening sinks her teeth into the juicy role of actress Gloria Grahame, one of the great screen femmes fatales of the 1940s and ’50s. But by the time this moving love story begins in the late ’70s, the Oscar®-winning, scandal-ridden star’s Hollywood career was behind her. Finding work on stage in England, her health failing, she returns to Liverpool and the arms of her much younger lover, Peter Turner, played by Jamie Bell. Without trying to imitate Grahame’s sultry kitten charm, Bening captures her complicated spirit, her voracious appetite for life and love. Bell, as grounded as his counterpart is volatile, matches her step for step as the movie veers between Liverpool and their earlier days together in Hollywood. Based on Turner’s own memoir, Paul McGuigan’s new film highlights the passion and the playfulness of the couple’s relationship, as well as the genuine affection they had for each other.

Annette Bening