UK Edition
Oscar predictors, prepare to add another major Best Actress contender to your lists. After four Academy Award nominations across two decades, it feels like the right time to herald Annette Bening, and she may just have found her winning project in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool.
In an extraordinary true-life story, Bening portrays American movie star Gloria Grahame, who meets and falls in love with a much younger actor (Jamie Bell) while performing in theatre in Liverpool. It is there that she is told that her breast cancer, which she successfully fought several years earlier, has returned.
But rather than seeking further treatment, Grahame decides to make Liverpool her home, determined to spend her last days in the city with her lover.
Directed by Paul McGuigan and based on the successful memoir by Peter Turner, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool promises to be both a culture clash comedy and a heartbreaking romance, with Bening on top form as the squeaky-voiced Hollywood star injecting a touch of glamour to Eighties Liverpool.
She and Bell star alongside an all-star cast that includes Vanessa Redgrave, Stephen Graham and Julie Walters – the latter reuniting with Bell for the first time since Billy Elliot.
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool is released on November 17