Well here I am, twenty minutes after and I’m sitting down
and writing about Behind the Candelabra by
Steven Soderbergh. If you don’t know, it’s about the relationship between the
world famous Liberace and Scott Thorson, a young man taken into Liberace’s ‘care’.
The film follows their tumultuous relationship from tentative beginning to
fiery denouement, stopping off for cat fights and jewellery shopping along the
way. If there’s one takeaway message from this film, it’s this: believe the
hearsay!
First let’s talk about the director. Well, it’s a Soderbergh
film about Liberace – it was always going to come down on the side of the Ocean’s films and Magic Mike than Traffic or
Erin Brockovich. That is by no means
a judgement about content or quality, simply style. And this film has a lot of
that. The film razzles here and dazzles there, and yet in an odd way it is
never too much, never too overpowering. Yes you are struck by the outlandish
jewellery and the custom cars, but the film and the viewer reside in the world
of Liberace at this point – everything seems to have its place and to have a
logical explanation.
Soderbergh paints a picture with a million colours, yet not
all of them are shades of gold and silver. The comic shock of Scott seeing
Liberace for the first time without his wig on is tempered with the
vulnerability you feel within the character in that moment – this is the first
time that his new companion has seen what really lies beneath the veneers and
polishes. This moment really sets the tone for the rest of the film.
After this we are essentially given two films – one in which
Liberace still outwardly shines and wows crowds around the world, and another
darker piece in which he lives out a series of ever increasing episodes of
paranoia by lashing out against Scott and eventually completing the cycle by
rejecting him altogether. Perhaps too this is Soderbergh’s comment about
celebrity itself. We know that this and Side
Effects are his last projects as a director, and he has said that he hates
the way modern directors are treated by the money men of film. In one scene
Liberace’s manager calls him at home, despite being told not to do so, and begs
him to appear in shows around Christmas as it will bring in more money - perhaps
through Liberace he is expressing his anger at the expectations of the
management teams and executives around these stars.
In terms of the acting talent on show, firstly it must be
said that Michael Douglas is brilliant in the headline role. You can see why
Soderbergh waited for his recovery from illness to make the film – he is pitch
perfect whether he is tinkling the ivories, telling a cheesy joke to a Vegas
audience or having a hissy fit in Liberace’s custom hot tub. Although the voice
does begin to grate by the end of the film, it is again spot on. For me this is
the type of role Douglas is suited to – he does the outrageous so well (see his
quotes about cunnilingus and his recent interview on Graham Norton) that when
he plays the suited politician, although he does this very well, you feel there
is just so much more he has to give. I do hope his illness stays away and he
can give us more performances like this.
Matt Damon is, well, fine! I certainly at every point
understood everything he was trying to tell me, through his facial expressions
and actions, but… there is always just something about him missing for me.
Don’t get me wrong I think he is a good actor, but particularly in a film like
this, where he is put next to someone making such a show-stopping performance
as Douglas does here, I think he gets shown up. Unfortunately he is not Magic
Matt! Don’t ask me what it is about him though; I just can’t quite put my
finger on it. Maybe his voice? Who knows. I think he shows promise, but again
he’s too easily shown up.
A quick roundup of the others – Scott Bakula plays a good
best friend/mentor type role; Debbie Reynolds is a loveable mother Liberace;
and Dan Aykroyd plays it beautifully down the middle to play Seymour,
Liberace’s brother. The scene-stealer however is Rob Lowe, who plays a quite
brilliant doctor/plastic surgeon/general apothecary who cannot move his own
face. He is a one-man illustration of the perils of cosmetic surgery.
So that’s my tuppence worth on Behind the Candelabra. I don’t do ratings I’m afraid - wouldn’t
want you to go and see anything with too much of a preconception from me
(although I’d be flattered if you did!) but I do definitely recommend going to
see this one. That’s all from me! Remember to keep supporting film in whatever
way you can.
