"The plot concerns Maurice, an elderly actor who finds himself increasingly attracted to his friend's young great-niece Jessie while simultaneously finding himself in deteriorating health due to what is apparently prostate cancer. Maurice's friend describes the great-niece as a trouble maker and a nuisance, but Maurice discovers that Jessie warms up to him when he starts interacting with her. He takes her to view his favorite painting, The Rokeby Venus by the Spanish artist Velázquez. Jessie had expressed interested in modeling and Maurice arranges for Jessie to model nude for an art class. As a result of Jessie posing for the art class, and inspired by his favorite painting, Maurice decides to give Jessie the nickname "Venus". Maurice and Jessie develop a passive/aggressive relationship over the course of the film. Maurice is forward in terms of his attraction toward Jessie while Jessie occasionally indulges his whims to a limited extent, such as touching her hand and smelling her neck, but also retracts the indulgences when she feels that he has gone too far. The plot of the film revolves around the evolving friendship or relationship between the two characters."

Perhaps I was either too conservative, or too narrow-minded (although you could say the two are synonymous) to understand all this. It seemed to me that:

a) Pensioner wants a piece of barely pubescent girl.
b) Barely pubescent girl wants sparkly things.
c) Pensioner buys barely pubescent girl sparkly things, in exchange for permission to lay his trembling hands on her perky young body.
d) Barely pubescent girl puts up with this for a time, before she loses her nerve and knees him in the particulars.
e) Repeat ad infinitum until pensioner dies in barely pubescent girls arms. All is forgiven.
f) Barely pubescent girl has standard epiphany, starts embracing life etc.

Anybody whose nipples still point north is not a suitable romantic interest for somebody who now calls a plastic bag his bladder. It's never going to work. He'll look like a predator, and she'll look like a daft kid who lets her desire for presents and attention come before her self-respect. What were you thinking, Mr Kureishi? Maybe you were trying to make a point about getting older not meaning that cardigans and cough sweets become your only interests.

Fair enough.