[7]

Michael Douglas plays Liberace for director Steven Soderbergh in this fast-paced tragi-romantic-dark comedy about the famed pianist’s five-year relationship with a man forty years his senior. Matt Damon plays young Scott Thorson, the naive pretty boy who falls under Liberace’s spell. Their relationship is highly odd, sometimes disturbing, but often tender — definitely compelling enough to hang a movie on, especially when it’s so well scripted by Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King) and acted by both leads. My favorite bit is when Liberace commits both himself and Scott to unnecessary face jobs with a creepy plastic surgeon played by Rob Lowe. Dan Aykroyd plays Liberace’s manager/lawyer, and Debbie Reynolds is wonderfully unrecognizable as Liberace’s mother.