★★★☆☆

THIS endearing biographical drama from eclectic director Paul McGuigan (Gangster No 1, Lucky Number Slevin) explores the final years in the tumultuous life of Golden Age Hollywood actress Gloria Grahame (Annette Bening), a star that shone bright for a time in films like It’s A Wonderful Life and Oklahoma! but hasn’t lingered in the cultural consciousness like many others from that era.

The year is 1981 and the 57-year-old Gloria is clinging on to the last of her stardom by performing on the stage. While preparing in her dressing room, however, she suddenly collapses and is in desperate need of full-on medical care.

But unwilling to check in to hospital, she calls on former lover and fellow actor, the much younger Peter Hunter (played by Jamie Bell and on whose affectionate memoir the film is based), to ask if she can recuperate at his family home in Liverpool.

The film is split into two timelines: the present day and a few years earlier to when Gloria and Peter first met. This storytelling device is both a help and a hindrance to engagingly tell a story that’s at once tragic and inspiring. On the one hand it uses the flashbacks to give greater depth to what we think we know about these two characters and in particular to illuminate the reasons behind Gloria’s behaviour.

We get to see the contrast between the glamour of her New York lifestyle made possible by the fondness for her on-screen persona with the quieter aftermath across the pond in the care of Peter’s family that includes his mother (Julie Walters), father (Kenneth Cranham) and brother (Stephen Graham).

But there’s a lot to explore here and, even with its specific focus on the latter part of Gloria’s life rather than the height of her career decades prior, it sometimes feels like the drama would be better off picking one timeline and sticking with it.

It’s therefore the performances that ultimately carry it through. Bell does some of his strongest work in years, particularly in the scenes of him dealing with the emotional effect this glamorous film star he has adored both up on the big screen and in a fleeting passion relationship now broken down in front of him in his childhood home.

Importantly he has great chemistry with Bening, an endlessly impressive performer of great nuance and distinctive emotionality. She slips into Gloria’s sophisticated yet dejected persona like she was born for it, skilfully avoiding the pitfalls of caricature that could come with Gloria’s atypical babyish voice and affected mannerisms, giving beautiful depth of feeling that will warm her to the uninitiated as much as it will gratify aficionados.