Venus
Miramax Films | Release Date: December 21, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Told with wit, genuine poignancy and all kinds of humor, Venus charts the unlikely relationship between a man in his 70s and a young woman more than half a century his junior. Read full review
100
New York PostKyle Smith
A sublime meditation that is one of this year's wisest, warmest and funniest films. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Venus is a magnificent tribute to actors by filmmakers who know they are the essential human material of theater and the screen. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
A man can be a treasure just as a work of art can be, and O'Toole is one of the handful of living film actors worthy of a museum of his own. Venus would make a brilliant final exhibit. Read full review
90
NewsweekDavid Ansen
A heartbreaking comedy that is simultaneously funny and sad, raunchy and sweet, funky and elegiac. These fresh, unexpected juxtapositions are a specialty of the writer Hanif Kureishi ("My Beautiful Laundrette"), a sworn enemy of cliché. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Venus may be a leering male fantasy, but it is also, improbably but persuasively, a love story as tender as it is transgressive. It's a wry celebration of the tyranny of beauty, and the tragicomic way in which desire outruns the betrayals of dying flesh. Read full review
90
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Venus belongs to O'Toole. This is, hands down, my favorite performance of the year, largely because I love the way O'Toole (and the filmmakers) refuse to yield to the all-too-pervasive idea that it's "icky" for old people to even think about sex. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
The quiet respect Venus displays toward lions in winter, defanged though they may be, is rare enough; the film's respect for unfinessed lionesses-to-be is rarer still. Wherever they're going, no one here is going quietly. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Peter O'Toole, looking frail beyond his 74 years, gives what may be his farewell performance as a leading movie actor in Roger Michell's Venus. It's one for the books - and maybe the Oscars, too. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Peter O'Toole, still a British cinematic lion at 74, performs another movie miracle in the Roger Michell-Hanif Kureishi film Venus. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Venus is rollickingly funny at times -- but there's an undercurrent of extraordinarily clear-eyed sadness. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
The great thing about Venus - apart from its sharp eye for the daily routines and drab details of senior citizenry in a buzzing metropolis - is that it isn't soppy, or sentimental. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The screenplay is by Hanif Kureishi, who wrote "The Mother" for Michell and also scripted the classic "My Beautiful Laundrette." He has a feeling for outsiders. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
O'Toole is frail and probably won't make many more movies. So Venus is pitched partly as a fond farewell to a beloved artist, and his whole beautiful generation. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Venus is the second film from director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi to explore the sexual lives of folk that the movies treat as sexless -- the elderly. But where "The Mother" was a cold film of sexual greed and emotional pettiness, this robust yet delicate comic drama finds a kind of dignity in the old lothario whose vital life force struggles against a failing body. Read full review
80
Village VoiceJim Ridley
Maurice, the protagonist of Venus, is a suit lovingly tailored to O'Toole's ravaged but commanding frame. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Awash in terrific performances.
80
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Since the movie is about desire -- not so much for sex as for the vitality and surprise that sex can provide -- it is also about power. Few writers can match Mr. Kureishi's knowing wit on this subject, or his skill at dissecting the shifting dynamics of longing and domination. Read full review
80
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi take a deeper, edifying interest in the moral ambiguities that arise between Maurice and Jessie. And thanks to our warm investment in both characters, we're more than willing to sign up for this existential ride. We allow this relationship -- and the movie -- to take us places we'd never usually go. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
This comedy drama is an exercise in self-indulgence for O'Toole, but an enjoyable and touching one. Read full review
80
EmpireAlan Morrison
A screen-acting showcase by a man whose best days, many thought, were behind him. There's life in the old dog yet. Read full review
80
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
The amazing thing about Venus is that it's brutally honest about all this but at the same time funny as hell. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
O'Toole gives a staggering performance -- fearless, defiantly untamed and in its own way a work of art. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
This is a brave movie because it addresses a subject Hollywood feels uncomfortable about. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Though O'Toole, whose ruined beauty Michell emphasizes in frequent and tight close-ups, and newcomer Whittaker have a striking rapport, the film's most haunting moments pair him with Vanessa Redgrave -- amazingly, this is their first movie together -- as his ex-wife. They evoke a lifetime of love, betrayal, regret and forgiveness in the space of a few lines, then move on without missing a beat. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Peter O'Toole's tour-de-force performance makes Venus a movie not to be missed. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
The suggestion that Peter O'Toole is playing some version of his real self in Venus adds a bittersweet poignancy to this quietly affecting British drama. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Like similar English comedies, it also teeters on the mawkish. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Genuinely funny, randy and moving by turns, breezily enjoyable throughout. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Venus is worth seeing for the scenes between O’Toole and Vanessa Redgrave as the woman he abandoned--the mother of his children. Read full review
70
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Melancholy but enjoyable. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Venus has a swank pedigree, but in this case that doesn't mean it's much more than a quaint machine to elicit tears and awards. Read full review
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