An abortive Pygmalion tale, written by Hanif Kureishi and directed by Roger Michell, about a septuagenarian one-time matinee idol ("You're famous?" "A little bit") who takes an interest in the hopeless would-be model and, in the meantime, ill-natured caregiver for her gay great-uncle, an old thespian crony of our Pygmalion figure. Some of the senescent sexuality has some interest in it for us, too, as we might expect from the indelicate writer of My Beautiful Laundrette, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, My Son the Fanatic, and (also directed by Michell) The Mother. And yet, for all the outward thorniness, the film is a ball of mush at heart. Peter O'Toole, as the dried-up ham, gives a wearily bluffing performance that nevertheless seems to have won over the critics. Always prone to a heavy stress and a lurching cadence in his delivery of lines, a kind of vocal galumpher, he is now more ponderous and harder-breathing by half, going for the Henry Fonda Oscar -- i.e., the sympathy vote -- and even, around the nipped-and-tucked hollowed-out eyes especially, looking a bit like late Fonda, a shadow of his former self (a "gorgeous" glamour shot from his salad days will remind us) or more accurately a cruel caricature of his former self. It is good to note that Vanessa Redgrave as his ex-wife continues to age beautifully, without taking extreme measures, and that she has still got a spark, a mere five years younger than O'Toole. Jodie Whittaker, in her screen debut as the Galatea figure, makes a pebble-sized splash. (2006) — Duncan Shepherd