I remember watching Liberace on television when I was very young. Even at that tender age I knew something was odd about him, but he was perhaps one of the greatest showmen of all time and seemed to thoroughly enjoy performing for people.
WARNING! Spoilers throughout!
But this movie doesn't show any of that. Since it's written from Scott Thorson's POV the movie doesn't concern itself much with Liberace's life as much as Scott's life with him, which occurred long after Liberace became famous.
Frankly, I thought the movie could have been about any two gay men's relationship; that Liberace was one of those men was coincidental and a very small part of the story.
I found the storyline to be very confusing. Thorson is shown in a gay bar and he meets Scott Bakula's character and in the next scene they're driving off together like they've known each other for a long time. We aren't told who this character is. I assume he works for and is a procurer for Liberace, but I have no idea how he came to be in that position or what his ties to Liberace were or how long he's been doing this.
For all Thorson's protests that he's bisexual and likes women too, we never see him with any women at all. He doesn't like to watch gay * because he thinks it's disgusting and wouldn't want anything like that done to him, yet he has no qualms about doing it to someone else. Huh?
When Liberace's mother -- played by Debbie Reynolds, who is completely unrecognizable and I had to watch the movie twice to make sure it was really her -- he shouts, "I'm finally free!" but we, the viewers, have no idea why he felt so trapped by her.
The palimony case went by too quickly.
When Liberace dies and the state forces an autopsy, the results are revealed and then that's it, they don't show anything about the public's reaction to the news the way they did with the Rock Hudson gay revelation.
What really bothered me about the movie was the part when Liberace is on his death bed and Thorson visits him. Liberace begs him, "Please don't tell anyone I looked like this," and Scott promises he won't, yet there it is.
Did he tell in his book how Liberace looked? I don't know, but he allowed it to be shown in the film. He broke his promise to a dying man, a man he professed to love deeply. There's no excuse for that.
Michael Douglas was phenomenal in his portrayal and literally became Liberace for me. I'm not a big fan of Matt Damon and I don't have anything to judge his performance by because I don't know anything about Scott Thorson, but he seemed comfortable playing the part. Dan Akroyd's part could've been played by anyone because it was small; maybe he just wanted to be in the movie. Rob Lowe's performance was, shall I say, a bit over-the-top, and once again I don't know if the real person was like that, but I can't imagine someone like that not being stripped of his medical license a long time ago.
If writing his book was a catharsis for Scott Thorson I don't know, but as a movie on its own merits, it was unnecessary. It bordered on soft gay * at times, it couldn't decide whether it was supposed to be a tribute to Liberace or a "queenie dearest" kind of story, and I really can't say I liked it.
