Downton Abbey star Elizabeth McGovern is banking quite a bit on her Ava Gardner impression. A whole show, in fact. She’s written this uneven biographical drama as a vehicle for her talent for impersonating the raucous, sexually voracious Hollywood star. And although she nails the drawling Dustbowl accent, the script doesn’t do much to make Gardner’s story an attractive proposition.
Ava is billed as a “memory play”, a term that suggests a Tennessee Williams-esque collection of tender reminiscences, clouded over by nostalgia and regret. The reality is different. Yes, there’s some moody lighting. But there’s also a crass English journalist who’s obsessed by the size of her ex-husband Frank Sinatra’s penis. McGovern has based her story on the book of the same name, a tabloidy tome by Peter Evans that charts his conversations with the star in lurid detail. He’s desperate to get the kind of lucrative scoop that’ll keep his kids in private school. She’s obsessed with her own image, and prone to sweary 3am phone calls and trenchant monologues about her bladder.
