Romance sulfureuse: L'histoire vraie de Liz Taylor et Richard Burton

As a lifelong fan who saw these events play out as they happened, I waited with eager anticipation to see the romance of the century portrayed in film. I have seen some of Lyndsay Lohan's early movies but have only seen her drug and alcohol fueled antics splayed across the gossip rags in recent years. I wasn't sure what to expect with her cast as La Liz. What the hell were they thinking?! She was awful!! Worst casting and acting I've seen......ever! Whiney, skinny 20-something "actress" was totally miss-cast and out of her league. Dick was at least believable to some extent but the rest......kinda painful to watch. Wish they could do it over. DVR'd it because I was busy the night it aired......delete!

Liz & Dick (2012)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Made-for-TV film about the up and down relationship between Elizabeth Taylor (Lindsay Lohan) and Richard Burton (Grant Bowler). That's pretty much all you need to know in regards to the story. If you don't know who Taylor and Burton were and just tune into this film then you're going to come away that they were both spoiled, drunk idiots who fought and had sex a lot. LIZ & DICK is a pretty poor movie that has some very good stuff in it but there's just no getting around some incredibly big and fatal flaws. The biggest flaw is the casting of Lohan, a talented actress, who is simply in way over her head. I really don't blame her horrible performance on her, I really blame the producers for casting her just to get some press and ratings. It's clear their trick worked but it really ended up killing the film because there's not a single frame where one will believe her as Taylor. The performance from Lohan is just bad and all over the place. Even embarrassing when it comes times for Lohan to re-enact some of the famous scenes from Taylor's movies. You can even call the performance lazy as the film covers twenty-plus years yet Lohan never ages. The film also goes over Taylor battles with gaining weight yet Lohan remains 100-pounds if that. Even worse is Lohan keeping her exact voice and not even trying to do Taylor's. Bowler, on the other hand, does a pretty good job capturing the voice of Burton and he handles the dramatic scenes much better. The film never tells you much about either person other than they drank too much and we never even get any knowledge of the films they made together. This is basically just a sleazy tabloid piece that goes for ratings and very little else. The film remains watchable because of the train wreck of a performance by Lohan but thankfully neither Taylor or Burton lived to see this.

As has been noted, Bowler evokes Burton with his voice. He has studied him, has it down. Lohan does not sound like Taylor at all, does not bring anything that remotely captures the essence of the woman to this film pairing. She just careens through her lines as if a superficial physical resemblance was all that mattered. And her inability to evoke Elizabeth is a constant irritant. There is nothing in this performance that gives a clue as to why they were attracted to one another...or if they really were. I kept listening for a resemblance in the voice, in the bearing..it just was not there. I found myself thinking at one point that Michael Jackson could have done a better job, as he sure had studied the woman. Painful.

As we begin, the aged Shakespearean actor Grant Bowler (as Richard "Dick" Burton) appears to be near his death bed, writing a letter to Hollywood temptress Lindsay Lohan (as Elizabeth "Liz" Taylor). We flashback to their 1961 meeting, while beginning the epic "Cleopatra" (1963). He is smitten. She plays hard-to-get, but succumbs quickly. Both are married, which causes great scandal. "Liz & Dick" get married and divorced, twice. They drink a considerable amount of liquor and burn countless cigarettes, which are the common denominators as the jaded couple travel around the world...

This was promoted as a blockbuster film event, but turns out to be a substandard TV-movie. The reason for the hype was Ms. Lohan's (then) status as a celebrity. Her public escapades would seem to suggest she might bring some depth to the role, but it does not happen. Her "Elizabeth" is not as entertaining as the original, by a long shot...

The make-up successfully suggests Ms. Taylor, though it also changes Lohan into both Natalie Wood and Suzanne Pleshette, as the years roll along. The script most obviously lacks Ms. Taylor's sense of humor - and her fondness for frequent obscenities. Her co-star is likewise restrained. One of the better sequences, directed by Lloyd Kramer, occurs when the couple play "rock the trailer" while spouses Eddie Fisher and Sybil Burton arrive on the set. Confusingly pieced together, "Liz & Dick" ends quickly and without any sense of the famous couple's friendship. There simply isn't much story here.

*** Liz & Dick (11/25/12) Lloyd Kramer ~ Lindsay Lohan, Grant Bowler, David Hunt, Theresa Russell

but I really can't When I saw the trailers, I thought it had promise. I saw scenes where it actually looked like Liz and Dick, but those were about the only resemblances I saw. The script was pretty thin and the acting was pretty pitiful. The script did cover their turbulent lives, but did not provide us with any information that we did not already know. Of course, if you are a bit younger than I am, you may have missed their trials and tribulation. If fact, you may not even know who they were and probably do not care. This movie will in no way inspire you to look further into their lives.

For me, the high point of the whole thing was when Burton died because I knew that the movie was about to be over. Skip this one.