Behind the Candelabra (2013)

The critic praises the film as powerful, funny, and emotionally rigorous, noting its exploration of control and show business through strong performances by Douglas and Damon.

The critic calls the film a magnificent, rhinestone-studded encore with fearless, transformative performances from Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Scott Thorson. Soderbergh turns TV-budget limitations into intriguing visual choices while letting the script and leads shine.

Soderbergh's portrait of Liberace offers a wealth of riches in its star performances and expert camerawork. The film stands as one of the best mainstream releases of its decade despite its made-for-cable origins.

The critic finds it an impressive work that feels like a great old Hollywood film, with wrenching emotional impact and elegant purposefulness from Soderbergh and the cast.

The critic highlights Douglas and Damon shining in a funny, poignant melodrama that showcases Soderbergh's direction of the Liberace story.

The critic finds the HBO-made film highly entertaining, with Matt Damon and Michael Douglas on top form in unexpected roles and a literate screenplay that respects the relationship while delivering witty lines. Soderbergh avoids parody in depicting Liberace's excesses and the production values capture the palatial kitsch effectively.

Soderbergh delivers a massively pleasurable and understanding biopic of Liberace's secret relationship with Scott Thorson. It successfully balances camp romp with the sadder realities of the era's sexual politics and a suffocating partnership.

The critic calls it a darkly moving look at two lonely men who briefly found something like love, while noting it simplifies too many things despite strong performances.

Beneath the flamboyance, the film emerges as a touching gay love story focused on personal heartache. Michael Douglas gives a triumphant performance as Liberace in this entertaining showbusiness biopic from Soderbergh.

Steven Soderbergh's swansong is a captivating biopic of Liberace and his relationship with Scott Thorson. It balances laughs at the excesses with a sense of claustrophobia and mortality, anchored by strong performances from Michael Douglas and Matt Damon.

Steven Soderbergh's addictively funny and watchable film is about the tempestuous love match between Liberace and Scott Thorson, brilliantly played by Michael Douglas and Matt Damon. It is a bizarre anti-Pinocchio parable of toxic love, co-dependency, plastic surgery and celebrity loneliness that starts super-camp and ends gently sentimental.

The critic calls the film fabulous, superbly scripted and brilliantly directed, with standout performances by Michael Douglas and Matt Damon that bring real feeling and sly humor to the Liberace biopic.

The critic highlights the film's exploration of the ordinary under the extraordinary in Liberace and Thorson's relationship, praising Soderbergh's stylistic choreography of actors and camera.

The critic praises Michael Douglas's assured impersonation of Liberace but finds the film limited and short on heart or heat, with little chemistry between the leads.

Soderbergh's exceptional film, adapted from Thorson's memoir, treats the five-year relationship with piercing intelligence and features one of Michael Douglas's greatest performances as the flamboyant Liberace. Douglas combines slackness and precision into a brilliantly unsettling yet lovable whole in this HBO-produced biopic that receives a UK cinema release.

The review highlights the film's exquisite craftsmanship, strong performances, and blend of humour and underlying melancholy in depicting the complex relationship. It is described as one of the best films seen at Cannes that year.

The critic calls it Soderbergh's best film in years, an honest and authentic rendering of the passionate love affair between Liberace and Scott Thorson. They single out the lead performances by Michael Douglas and Matt Damon for their natural affection and avoidance of stereotypes.

Soderbergh directs with wit and economy, playing the relationship's extremes for comic effect without demonizing its subjects. Douglas delivers a complex, arresting performance as the lonely, larger-than-life Liberace.

The critic praises the authentic and fearless performances of Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in portraying Liberace and Scott Thorson. The film is seen as evolving into a moving love story of two misfits amid the glamour and excess.

The critic finds the relationship predictable and the story familiar, despite strong performances from Douglas and Damon; it feels like a disappointing final film from Soderbergh as it offers nothing new or insightful.

The film explores the challenges of loving a famous person more than its camp elements; Soderbergh and the cast deliver a lively, warm portrayal of the imbalanced yet affectionate relationship between Liberace and Thorson.