Steven Soderbergh in recent years has definitely kept the audience
guessing. Going from big budget crime capers to heartfelt tales of male exotic
dancers, there isn’t a pin big enough to stick a label into his directorial preference.
His next piece of work, up on the plate of Film Fry Up, is Behind the
Candelabra, a Liberace biopic. Now
correct me if I’m wrong but for most people Liberace may not be a person they
would be all too familiar with, let’s say anyone under the age of 25. This
Fryer Upper having only been familiar with his name as an adjective. I grew up
in a house where anything outrageous or covered in glitter was often called “very
Liberace”. Within saying that I shared a house with an 80 year old woman, that
same demographic that vastly populated the screening of Behind The Candelabra
that Film Fry Up attended.
Telling the story of Liberace, a man famous for his ostentatious
clothes and taste as much as for playing the piano, and his relationship and secret
love affair with Scott Thorson. Michael Douglas and Matt Damon play expertly
against their type casting and are a joy to watch. Deemed too “gay” for
American theatrical release only speaks volumes as to the men’s ability to act
the pants off every scene (and the ridiculousness of America). There’s great whimsy in Behind the Candelabra
but lurking underneath the piles of fur and pounds of gold jewellery there’s an
ominous dark side of drug abuse and neglect, which contrasts beautifully to the
glitter and glitz. Everything in this movie is played out expertly and precisely but
somewhere along the way the piece starts to feel empty, lacking a substance of
great importance. This is always an issue with biopics and maybe that’s why
Walk The Line was so successful as it had great meat on its bones that kept the
audience entertained. But apart from the amazing and thoroughly engrossing
relationship between Liberace and Scott, there isn’t much else on offer here.
Behind The Candelabra may not be fully worthy of its overtly
positive reviews and ratings. It does seem that once an actor steps outside
their proverbial box, may it be either to lose weight, get ugly, play against
type cast or to go “Forrest Gump”, they get inundated with praise and
accolades. Now Michael Douglas and Matt Damon may be worthy of such but Behind
The Candelabra as a whole? Not really. Maybe America was right in the decision
to stick it on HBO, at times it’s a great and even brilliant T.V. movie but that’s just about where the
buck, and all the sequins, stop.
XXX
