Based on the autobiographical novel, the tempestuous 6-year relationship between Liberace and his (much younger) lover, Scott Thorson, is recounted.
Every scene of Soderbergh’s film is sprinkled in sequin dust, topped by a finale that Liberace himself might have enjoyed.
Who’d have thought Michael Douglas and Matt Damon would make such an astonishing, convincing on-screen couple? Steven Soderbergh, that’s who...
As biopic, black comedy and portrait of celebrity loneliness, Behind the Candelabra really is hard to beat.
The full-blooded Hollywood stars give magnificent performances as one of the most mad and memorable couples to be immortalized on screen: Liberace and his young buck lover Scott Thorson.
Here is something pretty remarkable, a showbiz biopic that manages to be incisive without being judgemental, and sexually candid without being prurient.
What the film ultimately serves up is an intriguing, and in the end, quite sad portrait of a marriage, not a legally binding one, but one in which all of the attendant complications and power plays that can make or break any relationship are laid bare.
Exceptional.
A camp masterpiece.
The film earns big laughs from his vulgar tastes and the era's worst fashions. But the second half of the film tells a more familiar, less enjoyable story, about Thorson's drug dependency and the end of the affair.
The film might have come across as a crude, cruel, even homophobic satire of Hollywood crassness, but in the end it's coldly revealing about the mating law of the whole showbiz jungle.
A brilliant performance by Michael Douglas illuminates an affectionate and funny portrait of the flamboyant entertainer.
There are times when Thorson’s unravelling threatens to send us down a well-worn, drug-addled path – a Boogie ‘Woogie’ Nights, perhaps? – but a poignant third act ensures otherwise. That, as they say, is entertainment.
Fun, entertaining and well-judged, Behind The Candelabra is absolutely fabulous. If this really is Steven Soderbergh’s swan song – and let’s hope it isn’t – he’s went out on a high.
General release. Check local listings for show times.