Behind the Candelabra, Cannes Film Festival - film review

Steven Soderbergh has made a stunningly good film of Scott Thorson's novelised account of life with his lover, the late Liberace
P9 Film: Behind the Candelabra
12 June 2013

Liberace always denied he was gay, in 1956 winning £8,000 in damages from the Daily Mirror for having imputed that he was “fruit-flavoured”. A year after his death from Aids in 1987, his live-in lover for five years in the late Seventies, Scott Thorson published a novelised account of their life together.

Steven Soderbergh has made a stunningly good film from this book, much more than just a biopic, ultimately a celebration of performance itself. From the moment Michael Douglas takes the stage in Las Vegas as Liberace, commanding the audience with sensational brio, you know how good the whole film is going to be, what a romp.

It’s an astounding piece of work, combining the genuine glamour that Douglas can turn on so easily with a clear view of how tacky and gimcrack Liberace always was, how saggy underneath the wigs, the capes and the glitter.

This has to be Douglas’s best role for a long time, let’s even say ever. But Matt Damon is just as good as a chipmunky Thorson, transmuting from a good-natured country boy who wants to be a vet, 18 when Liberace meets him, to a nightmarish addict, after undergoing plastic surgery to make him look more like the young Liberace, and being fed a cocktail of drugs by a slimy svengali of a doc (Rob Lowe, the movie’s third great turn, Debbie Reynolds, as Liberace’s mother, being the fourth).

The movie is gloriously shot (Soderbergh apparently doing more or less everything himself as usual) in fittingly rich colour, wide views and shallow focus — and Scott and Liberace have such great scenes together.

“I promise I’ll stay in my side of the bed, I promise”, says Liberace on their first night. Next morning, an appallingly saurian face is looming right over Scott — “well, look who’s up!” After a sweaty bout, Scott marvels that it’s the fourth time since lunch. “You make me feel so young — and I’ve had implants,” says the great man.

“Will I be able to close my eyes?” Liberace asks as he’s about to go under the knife himself, in the hope of looking like a man in his forties. “Not entirely,” he’s told.

In the next scene, he’s fast asleep, eyes wide open, snoring stertorously, while Scottie tries to wake him. The age-gap between the pair was 39 years.

Two straight stars are camping it up to the heights here —- a reversal of Hollywood’s usual state of affairs. Maybe it’s just because there are still no out gay stars who could sustain such a film? (Soderbergh made Behind the Candelabra with HBO because the big studios wouldn’t back it, meaning that as TV production it’s not eligible for Oscars). Or maybe this really is an important moment in recognising that great acting is not tied by any such identities?

The way Douglas makes himself into this outrageous star feels like something every actor would do, if only he could. It touches something essential about showmanship. Soderbergh’s last films, Magic Mike and Side Effects, were both also in their different ways about being able to carry off performances, to live out roles — and maybe that’s what we rejoice in here too. A winner.

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