BEHIND THE CANDELABRA

Rumours of Steven Soderbergh’s retirement have been slightly exaggerated (by me, in my review of his excellent Side Effects – sorry about that). Like the campest of Draculas returning for one more bite, the Oscar-winning director is back for a gorgeous last hurrah – and, as his subject said, too much of something is wonderful.

Michael Douglas and Matt Damon act their socks, furs and crystal-encrusted accessories off in this biopic of pianist Wladziu ‘Lee’ Liberace (Douglas), whose reign as ‘Mr Showmanship’ kept diamanté producers afloat for decades until his death. In 1977 Lee met Scott Thorson (Damon), whose autobiography gives the film both its basis and title, when Thorson was 17, and embarked on an affair that lasted six years before ending up in court due to Thorson’s drug addiction and Liberace’s wandering eye.

Familiar faces litter the screen. There’s Lee’s real-life chum Debbie Reynolds as his mother, Dan Aykroyd as his fixer manager and Scott Bakula as Bob, the best friend. Best of all though, is Rob Lowe as a creepy plastic surgeon, whose spectacularly awful face and hair are one of the film’s biggest gifts. Damon, 42, is utterly convincing all the way from a teenage Scott to a drug-addled man in his late 20s.

Despite the many sequins and the stranger aspects of the relationship – Liberace insisted on Scott getting plastic surgery to look like him, and suggested adoption – this is way more than a celebration of kitsch.

Beyond The Candelabra is a rich story, rather than a two hour- long show tune. Every reaction shot earns a laugh, but the cast succeed because they play it straight. Liberace’s earlier adoption idea has been read as the closest thing the 1970s would allow to a gay marriage. ‘You can adopt someone you’re f******? That’s a great law,’ says Scott’s drug dealer incredulously, in one of the wonderfully crisp lines. Liberace never came out as gay. This seems hilarious now, yet he successfully sued the Daily Mirror when they alleged it.

From Liberace’s elaborate shows to his private life, Soderbergh stitches all these plans together as beautifully as any costume. The screen is never knowingly under-sequinned – at one point, Scott delivers Liberace onstage in Vegas in a glittery Rolls-Royce – and this feels like an utterly absorbing theme-park ride, albeit one that creaks a little towards the end.

There won’t be any Oscars, because Hollywood didn’t have the balls to fund it – but thank goodness for TV company HBO, which did. This marvellous film combines story and spectacle with a heart that is as golden as Liberace’s bathtub. No villains, no heroes, just humans.