Sex and death

It's tempting to say that Peter O'Toole brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "dirty old man" in Venus, but what he really does is refine the old meaning, help us understand why someone who's spent his whole life in the pursuit of happiness might be reluctant to give it up just because he's about to die. O'Toole is grandiloquently seedy as Maurice Russell, a once-famous actor who still gets parts, usually playing corpses. And Jodie Whittaker is enjoyably loutish as the callow, shallow young woman who, under the guise of caring for the elderly, doles out her body parts one at a time.