Annette Bening appears in a scene from "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool."

If there was any doubt about the greatness of Annette Bening those doubts are erased in her latest movie “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool.”

It’s another compelling performance for the four-time Oscar nominee in a film that may sputter at times only to be lifted by Bening’s stunning work.

She plays Gloria Graham, the Academy Award winning actress who succumbed to breast cancer at the age of 57 in 1981. “Film Stars” focuses on the final years of Graham’s life and her May-December romance with a struggling English actor named Peter Turner.

The film, based on Turner’s memoirs, shifts back and forth in time – showing the origins of their relationship and how Turner tried to care for Graham when she returned to his family home in her final days.

As someone with very little knowledge of Graham coming into “Film Stars” which sparked my interest to learn even more about her career after the film was over.

I’m not sure there is much here to add anything that fans of Graham probably don’t already know, but it does provide an interesting look at someone trying to grasp to their past fame.

Bening captures that desperation quite well in a very layered performance asking her to be both sexy and confident and tragic and desperate. It’s odd that she didn’t gain much Oscar traction, passed over during the awards season, because I think it’s the showy kind of role the Academy usually gravitates to.

Maybe it’s because the story itself tends to be a little conventional and because Bening tends to overshadow the rest of the cast, but it’s Bening that makes this film well worth your time. It’s hard to imagine “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool” without her.

Starring: Annette Bening, Jamie Bell

Directed by: Paul McGuigan

Rating: R for language, some sexual content and brief nudity

Playing at: Regal Green Hills Stadium 16 in Nashville (opens Friday)

Grade: B