Review: Behind the Candelabra

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.