Venus (2006)
While Venus wasn’t technically O’Toole’s last film, it has an air of finality about it. It was his last Oscar nomination (another loss, of course) and sees O’Toole as Maurice, an elderly former actor, in sort of the last ‘hurrah’ of his life. Maurice is brash and a cad, in a bit of a wink to O’Toole’s own notorious past. He’s dying of prostate cancer when he befriends a teenager (Jodie Whittaker, our new Doctor) and the two have a tumultuous, confusing, inappropriate, heartwarming and charming relationship.
O’Toole is funny, lively and charming, and despite the sometimes raunchy humour the film never falls into a “dirty old man” cliche.