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"Director: Steven Soderbergh; Screenwriter: Richard LaGravenese Starring: Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, Rob Lowe, Scott Bakula; Running time: 118 mins; Certificate: 15  After announcing his retirement from the movie business with Side Effects, director Steven Soderbergh made this portrait of Liberace for television. But with a character so much larger than life and A-Listers Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in eye-popping performances, it only seems right that it gets the big screen treatment (if only in Europe). Dare to be dazzled. The flamboyant pianist is seen through the wide, adoring eyes of his long-term lover Scott Thorson (Damon) whose memoir the film is based on. Before meeting Liberace (Douglas) in 1977, he is fresh-faced and fairly innocent, to the point that he is reluctant to embrace his homosexuality. He calls himself bisexual, though as Liberace later comments, he&amp;#039;s never been seen with any women. Evidently, it wasn&amp;#039;t love at first sight with Liberace either. When brought backstage at a show in Vegas, Scott shifts nervously under the old man&amp;#039;s gaze (there&amp;#039;s a 40-year age gap) and he flinches at the prospect of being touched when Liberace contrives to have him share his bed. Soderbergh plays this situation brilliantly for comic effect and, crucially, without demonising his star. Douglas is truly arresting as Liberace; complex yet childishly simple. He flounces around in fur and rhinestones, but behind all that - and the candelabra on his piano - he is clearly lonely and, in a way, a stranger to himself. He attempts to buy love when he offers Scott a job (and has him quit his veterinary career), but later on, he also tries to buy his silence. Liberace never came out publicly. The ups and downs of their relationship are both extreme and everyday. Control issues come to the fore, but they&amp;#039;re made more pronounced by Liberace&amp;#039;s spending power and the drama queen antics - though it&amp;#039;s mostly Scott storming out of rooms in shiny knickers. If he got into this for the money, it&amp;#039;s not the reason he stays. He grew up in foster care and, absurdly, Liberace offers to adopt him. Partly, this is a comment on the hypocrisy of &amp;#039;a free country&amp;#039; that outlaws gay marriage, but what resonates on a deeper level is that Liberace and Scott both hanker to belong. Again, it becomes a compulsion magnified by &amp;#039;living large&amp;#039;. Liberace hires a plastic surgeon to mould Scott in his own image and Rob Lowe is hilarious in that role, with a face permanently pinched in bemusement. From there it&amp;#039;s a steep descent into drug abuse (Dr Startz dishes out speed as diet pills) with Scott mourning the loss of his own identity. On the surface, Damon&amp;#039;s performance is bold, but it&amp;#039;s also delicate because there&amp;#039;s little sense of who Scott was before Liberace, or who he might have been. It means the first half of the film is a tad cartoonish - wonderfully, surreally funny but hard to grasp.  The pathos comes later and takes you by surprise like a wild party broken by daylight. Scott aims to sue (cue: tears, tantrums and tiaras), but reality bites harder when Liberace tells him he&amp;#039;s dying of AIDS. By now, Damon and Douglas have built a strong rapport and they see each other clearly. Still, Liberace&amp;#039;s final curtain call is a poignant reminder of how easy it is to get lost under bright lights.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a486386/behind-the-candelabra-review-michael-douglas-lifts-veil-on-liberace/>