Michael Douglas as Liberace in Steven Soderbergh's new adaptation (© HBO Films)
In 2005 the drama Brokeback Mountain, about a relationship between two cowboys, won an Oscar for director Ang Lee. Half a dozen years later, another Oscar-winning director, Steven Soderbergh, sought in vain to fund an adaptation of Behind the Candelabra, Scott Thorson’s memoir of his affair with the entertainer Liberace, a man who strenuously (and litigiously) denied his homosexuality to the public. Soderbergh had glittering stars—Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, no less—but the studios told him the story was “too gay.” Who would watch it? they said. TV company HBO stepped in to produce a small-screen version and thanks to enthusiastic European theatrical distributors (and Cannes selectors) now we get Candelabra in cinemas. Bring on the boys! Marvel at their preternatural youth onscreen, the elaborate costumes, the cameo performance by Liberace’s old pal Debbie Reynolds! So what if it threatens to be the same old love-gone-wrong melodrama, with extra plastic surgery? With this cast and pedigree and with Soderbergh’s recent threat to retire from directing for the big screen, how could you resist?
On release from 7th June
