Film review: Behind the Candelabra

With: Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, Dan Aykroyd

Runtime: 118 minutes

STEVEN Soderbergh's ab-fabulous gaze at Liberace, candelabra owner and entertainer extraordinaire, opens with a bubblegum-coloured screen and a blast of Donna Summer's disco classic, I Feel Love. All ye who enter this nightclub, the message is, prepare for a high old time studded with laughs, glitz and outbreaks of bitchiness that will make Joan Rivers look like Kate Middleton.

It is not all bitch and bling, though. With Michael Douglas and Matt Damon playing the ageing, perma-tanned ivory tinkler and his younger lover, Scott Thorson, this is also a moving, beautifully drawn look at the life and death of both a man and a relationship. In public, Liberace was an individual so far back in the closet he had honorary citizenship of Narnia. In private it was another matter. Towards this complex, driven character, Richard LaGravenese's sharply observed screenplay turns an affectionate, but clear-eyed, gaze.

We first see Liberace as Thorson sees him, as audience member to Vegas showman. "It's funny that this crowd would like something this gay," says Thorson as he looks round at the ocean of blue rinses. "Oh, they have no idea he's gay," is his pal's response.

Going backstage to meet the man himself, Thorson the animal trainer is soon caught in Liberace's mesmerising gaze. Before one can say well-meaning fools rush in, he is being equally seduced by Liberace's mansion (hint: it ain't Shaker minimalist) and his lifestyle in general. For a kid who had moved from foster home to foster home, and who was so obviously looking for a father figure, what Liberace offered was too much to resist.

Damon plays Thorson just right. You have to be extremely skilled as a character actor to portray such an apparently straightforward individual in so nuanced a fashion. At first Thorson seems as naive as one of Liberace's beloved and pampered pooches, all wide eyes and infinite trust. But as Damon shows, he was also a survivor, a man who tried his best to adapt to his circumstances, until even he became overwhelmed by them.

The subtlety does not end there. While Soderbergh goes to town in showing the vulgar trappings of Liberace's life – the furs, the jewellery, the cars – he paints with restraint and in miniature when it comes to the details of relationships. There are some wonderfully telling moments, such as Liberace getting out of a jacuzzi, while Thorson is still in it, and switching off the bubbles. He's the king of the castle, and Thorson better not forget it.

Bubbles are among the many materials artfully arranged so as to cover the modesty of the actors. Crumpled sheets are pressed into service too. There are sex scenes, pretty candid ones as well, but as the 15 certificate shows, there is nothing to alarm the equine fraternity.

As the relationship goes on, Thorson is remade in an image of Liberace's choosing, from clothes to body. Soderbergh, in a rare surrender to cliche, duly surrenders to a Pretty Woman makeover scene. A far more original entrance is made by Rob Lowe as Dr Jack the facelift man. Like the hairstyles of Damon and Douglas, Lowe's barnet – Judith Chalmers by way of Cindy Crawford – is a wonder to behold. Also turning in outstanding performances are Dan Akroyd, playing Liberace's manager and enforcer; Scott Bakula, the friend who introduces Thorson to the piano man; and, hiding under a brilliant make-up job, Debbie Reynolds as Liberace's mother.

The only place where Soderbergh hurls subtlety out of the window is in the plastic surgery scenes. Perhaps he was making a point about the brutality of both obsessive love and showbusiness, how each demands perfection, and pain. More likely he wanted to throw the audience into a Contagion-like squirm just for the heck of it (this is meant to be his last film for cinema, remember).

As the mood dims, so the humour becomes ever more necessary. LaGravenese crafts some gloriously cutting lines, most of which, fittingly, drip from the lips of Liberace. What a wonder Michael Douglas is. In a career stretching from Wonder Boys to Wall Street, from The China Syndrome to The War of the Roses, he has turned in some terrific performances, and this is one of his best.

Like the film as a whole, he could have gone wildly over the top with Liberace, but instead he shows a man of many characters and moods, some of them noble and likable, some of them not (such as when he sued a British paper for suggesting he was gay). Whatever else he was, Douglas shows Liberace as a real person, someone made up of flesh and blood and history and feelings just like everyone else, and not a caricature of a gay man, which is what he became in some eyes.

Not that American cinemagoers will be treated to any of this. Nor will Douglas and Damon receive the Oscar nominations they deserve. Deemed too bold for cinema release in the US, Behind the Candelabra was shown in America on television only, making it ineligible for the Oscars. It pulled in four million viewers, one of the highest ratings for a drama achieved by HBO. Roll on the Emmys, then. How Liberace, and his little dogs, would have laughed.

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