imperfect, but for what it achieves it's absorbing

Rating: 8/10 (7 November 2014)

Michael Douglas gets into this character - whether he IS Liberace, well, he is still a character in a movie ultimately, however true he may be to real life - is remarkable. Douglas has been playing characters for decades that have been like the 'Lover Man' types, the leading man with swagger and presence who you believe would have women flocking to him (Glenn Close, Sharon Stone in his prime, I'm sure there's more). Now he's in his 60's, but he's playing Liberace without missing a beat or stopping to go for broke, which is what Steven Soderbergh as director and Richard LaGravanese as writer goes for. This is a dark, flamboyant character with more layers and depth than it would appear on the surface. You might just look at Liberace and see a control freak (or just a freak in general), a megalomaniac, and an egotist, and that's in the first half. But it's his relationship with this guy Scott, played by Matt Damon, that makes it a full-blown character study and, in fact, a failed tale of romance and fame.
Soderbergh captures the glitz and glamour, and the horror of this world too. Scott, as played by Matt Damon in a, frankly, slightly miscast role. Maybe ten years ago, when this film was planned, it would have worked, but Damon is now in his 40's, and he doesn't look or act quite young enough, much as he might try and it's sad to say as it's the only time he hasn't fully worked with this filmmaker. And yet, the writing and storytelling helps a bit, and when it comes time for Scott, who becomes Liberace's intense lover and confidant (for the most part) and almost his second in command at times, there's one last thing: he has to look... better for his old musical genius of a lover. So, plastic surgery.
This was one of the things that stuck with me the most, how a person can change so drastically in such a landscape as in show-business - especially that around Las Vegas in the 70's and Liberace and that whole ball of wax - and change their look like THAT. Oh, and lest not forget Rob Lowe, who is so incredibly funny and horrifying at the same time to LOOK at. There's more cringe-comedy following the surgery, and the peaks and valleys of this relationship of this May/December romance. Soderbergh seems to be not shying away from the gaudy spectacle that was this world that Liberace had set up - and, ultimately, ended in tragedy for him, not altogether one he didn't bring on himself - but he shoots it with a level of class and sophistication; it's not too gaudy (though the color orange and red and yellow fix their way into the palette of the director's cinematography).
In other words, the movie looks really good, the finale, especially if this had been Soderbergh's 'final' movie, is quite a way to go out, and the acting delivers on the sordid details making them feel palpable and, for as much as this kind of lurid and tempestuous narrative goes, real and full of hurt. Even as Damon, as I mentioned, doesn't totally work, he still tries to give it his all and it matters still. Douglas, after all, can't be as good as he is without some support, and at the least he's bringing his A game here. I don't know where it rests in this director's filmography, but it's up there as one of his toughest dramas and darkest comedies in one package. Oh, and get ready to SING! No, not really, but there's music a plenty here, and some of it, as kitschy as it is... it kind of works for how Soderbergh shoots it.
Or, to put it another way - if a character from an 'Ocean's' movie took a left turn in the 70s, they could wind up in the dark corridor of... a Las Vegas concert room. So it goes.