In a gentle essay on sexual desire, Hanif Kureishi reflects on the inspiration behind his new film Venus. The central story is of an old man - Maurice, played by Peter O’Toole - and his infatuation for a young woman, and their mutual use of and growing affection for each other. Alongside runs another subject, that of friendship, depicted particularly in Maurice’s friendship with another elderly gentleman, Ian, a fellow actor, played by Leslie Phillips.

The sexual tension of the main plot is juxtaposed by this portrait of male friendship. Though interestingly, together the two men do many of the things that old lovers or a married couple might. They dance together (as in the still above), complain together, row, laugh, tease, enjoy familiar badinage. They also keep secrets from one another, not out of malice but to avoid complications. It is as if their age allows them to transcend what is often reported as the complicating factor for male friendship, the nascent homoeroticism of its affectionate bond. Maurice is powerfully heterosexual, even in his advanced, impotent years. There is, perhaps, a suggestion that his friend is a little more purple in his orientation, if not exactly pink: upon seeing a picture of Maurice as a young man, he agrees that he was ‘gorgeous’.

Kureishi says he became interested in the friendship of men following a regular get together he has with old friends on Fridays in Notting Hill. It is the easy companionship that he loves; the way they can talk about serious concerns, like sleep - or as one of them confesses, the mornings do nothing less than ease the burden of his otherwise rather complicated life. I doubt whether they dance together as Kureishi perhaps hopes they could or might, if the scenes in which his film’s characters dance is anything to go by. Perhaps Kureishi expresses a longing that male friendship could be more at ease with its physical expression in this.

Another friendship in the film is between Maurice and his wife. Years ago he selfishly left her with their three children. Now, though, past sins are forgiven. They implicitly recognise that the intimacies and pain of their lives has made them richer, and so old anger can take second place to warm remembrance and concern. Similarly, the suggestion is that their friendship has flourished because it has transcended the complications of sexual passion.

If you run the story of the friendships and that of the infatuation together, Kureishi’s story bears some comparison to Plato’s story of love in the Phaedrus. The dialogue does not feature old men or women, of course. It charts the course of an affair between an Athenian youth and his young infatuation. The older initiates the love and is driven to the younger, who replies with what Plato calls ‘back-love’ - a kind of narcissistic recognition of the affection of the other. This, then, morphs into a mutual passion, that both realise is more intense and consuming than other relationships they have.

Then, after a while, they become friends, as their obsession for each other turns outwards and awakens an interest in the world around them - the love that Plato called philosophy. This friendship is deeper because of the sexual love they shared before. And, indeed, they may still indulge in its physical expression from time to time. Though, as ever in Plato, it is best not to get stuck on love for the body, but to allow that to act as a springboard for the higher love of understanding.

In this part, at least, Kureishi’s story is not Platonic. Maurice declares he does not know himself. He only knows he likes to go with the body - in his decrepitude, not his body but the body of the girl. Which is perhaps why there is something about Maurice that is charming but untrustworthy. At his wake, commenting on the number of mourners, his wife remarks cooly that everyone wants to be your friend when you die. It feels more like a comment on Maurice than the wider circle of people who knew him.

Mark Simpson laments the passing of a certain kind of friendship - trade - the pre-1967 relationships between working class youths with the queen's shilling in their pocket and time to kill on the streets of London and their mature, musical mollyhouse-loving admirers. He doesn't doubt that they were friendships: 'the newly married Jim writing rather sweetly to his gentleman friend, John Lehmann: "I wish I was still seeing you Jack as you were the best friend I ever had... you were always such a good friend to me we had good times together Jack and I hope I shall see you some time."'

A piece in Money Guardian today discusses the cost of the average marriage - currently around £17,000 with guests paying an extra £300 each for the privilege too. This does seem overblown. And the article blames it on the video camera: the wedding becomes, in effect, a spectacle which like a Hollywood movie consumes millions in getting it right. There is no doubt something in this. Though I tend to think that the bottom line is something to do with money itself. In a world in which it sucks all value to itself - so that it is hard to resist the feeling that something is valuable only if it costs much - even human relationships fall under the measure. The wedding is the great opportunity to show this: no doubt unconsciously, people spend a fortune as an expression of the good fortune they believe, or hope, they have in love. How sad.

I was reading the Times agony column. Someone wrote in with a holiday problem. In short, she and her boyfriend are going on holiday with another girl-friend, and the girlfriend has failed to book her (single) hotel room. The hotel is now full: 'should we say she can share our's, as she has asked'? The agony aunt replied that friendship is all about putting up with the follies of friends, and that they should either share the room or be very hands on in finding her another. But don't you think that this 'forgetting' sounds darker than that? The girlfriend trying to sleep in the same room as her best friend's boyfriend (you don't have to be a pop lyricist to realise the power in that scenario). At the very least, the girlfriend is already feeling like a gooseberry. Doesn't bode well for the holiday...

If you ever doubted that friendship, though platonic, can be nonetheless erotic you should hear Toby Young and Julie Birchill talking about their friendship during the time of the Modern Review (in a documentary 'When Toby met Julie' on TV last night). Toby called it a romantic friendship. It was certainly passionate: they mingled blood, nurtured loves, cultivated hates, edited and wrote; but never had sex, nor apparently ever wanted to. But when Toby started an affair with Suzanna, Julie could not cope: she who describes herself as an empty shell, felt something; it clawed at her all day (she thought it might be guilt but clearly it was jealously). The clock started ticking on the great child of their amitous love. And the Modern Review closed within weeks - Julie stealing Suzanna from Toby to boot!