Burton and Taylor

Burton and Taylor will forever be Hollywood's golden couple whose turbulent life made headline news but also inspired some dramatic films, none more so than 'Who's afraid of Virgina Woolf.'

The setting for this one off film is 1983, a year before Burton's untimely death.

Richard Burton (Dominic West) and Elizabeth Taylor (Helena Bonham Carter) after their second divorce are reuniting in London for a theatrical play of Noel Coward's Private Lives and enter another spiral of turbulence, bickering, despair and affection.

The press announcement creates a storm of interest and speculation in the media as to if they will get back together for a third time.

Taylor still carries a torch for Burton while Burton, a man with a reputation as a great stage actor is frustrated by Taylor's histrionics and her unwillingness to rehearse the play properly.

Bonham Carter captures the essence and cattiness of Taylor remarkably well although West seems to struggle with his Burton. Maybe it was a misstep by concentrating in this period of their relationship when there is a more interesting story to be told about this pair as to how they fell in love in the early 1960s. Together with their roller coaster relationship over the next 20 years.

In 1983 Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor appeared together on stage for the first and only time in Noel Coward's comedy PRIVATE LIVES. Although critically panned, it sold out for its entire run on Broadway, with audiences flocking to see the sight of two legendary figures bickering with one another. William Ivory's screenplay tells the story of that theatrical performance, focusing in particular on Taylor's (Helena Bonham Carter's) gradually disintegrating state of mind, as she realizes that Burton (Dominic West) has abandoned her for good in favor of his new wife Sally Burton (Cassie Raine). Bonham Carter gives a creditable impersonation of Taylor, even though she lacks that mysterious quality that kept Taylor in the public eye for so many years; in this performance, Taylor comes across as a bit of a hopeless drunk with a penchant for upstaging Burton. West's Burton seems like a dedicated actor; despite his love of money and the Hollywood high life, he never lost his professionalism, even in an obvious turkey like this PRIVATE LIVES, in which Taylor seldom knew her lines and often consciously departed from the script, in full knowledge that the audience didn't give a fig. So long as she appeared on stage, then the houses would remain packed; if she was absent, the box-office suffered as a result. In the end, however, both of them seem rather pathetic figures, mere shadows of their former selves at the height of their popularity during the mid-Sixties. We can't help feeling sorry for two actors who were so fond of the limelight that they never knew when to give up: Burton kept wanting to play King Lear, even though he was both physically and mentally ill-equipped to do so. BURTON AND TAYLOR seems like a requiem for two great stars reduced to mere museum exhibits.

There is criticism that this play does not do justice to the Burton-Taylor relationship but that is unfair, what it does do is to focus upon a particular stage in their lives, coincidentally shortly before Burton's death.

Other criticism is for the lead players. If you had to cast someone as iconic as Richard Burton or Elizabeth Taylor who would you cast? Who would meet the legend? I feel the leads do a competent job and Dominic West's fading Welsh accent is very convincing.

It is, in truth, a fairly boring story but bolstered by strong performances and good direction.

"Burton and Taylor" starts weakly because it takes a while to accept Dominic West as a dissipated 57-year-old Richard Burton and Helena Bonham-Carter as legendary glamour puss Liz Taylor. But West wins us over first of all with his deep voice and cultivated enunciations (which was what Burton was primarily known for); then secondarily his Burton-style cheek folds and greying temples provide just enough distraction from West's own robust youthfulness; finally, West projects a pervasive worldly cynicism tempered with a basic humanity. Bonham-Carter has the coloring and heat of Taylor, something of the physique (though less buxom), slightly similar facial features enhanced by careful camera angles and she effectively duplicates Taylor's weak, whiny voice. She redeems herself for her abominable performance in 2012's "Dark Shadows."

The scope of the story, with the exception of one flashback, is wisely limited to several months in 1983 when the famous twice-married, twice-divorced couple reunited to play the leads in Noel Coward's "Private Lives" on Broadway. They were both too old for their parts and Taylor was not remotely adept at stage acting but superficially at least, their own relationship resembled that of the tempestuous couple at the heart of Coward's play. And that was enough for star-struck Broadway audiences to guarantee a financially successful – if artistically disastrous - production. Highlights of this extended public embarrassment – from early rehearsals through closing night – are interspersed with peaks and valleys in the Burton-Taylor personal drama.

Burton emerges as a skilled and erudite artist waylaid by dependency on drugs (alcohol and cigarettes); Taylor as an intelligent but spoiled, pill-popping, self-absorbed star monster, the kind only Hollywood could create; the pair as mutually dependent devourers and enablers of each other—in short, a mythic representation and exaggeration of average couples in general, which indeed was part of their mass appeal.

There are so many revelatory truths scattered amidst the dross of the TV-movie-style mise- en-scene that one can only surmise that the creative personnel behind this effort actually cared about and emotionally connected with their subjects. A few examples: the startling scene backstage when Taylor in mid-conversation with Burton suddenly slugs him in the face for having spoken rudely to her staff moments earlier; the close-up on their hands clasped together and then separating during a curtain call, pointing up the unstable unity-disunity of their relationship as expressed by the failure-success of their play; the dynamic of their on- stage interactions as Taylor, thanks to her sheer star power, gets away with running roughshod over Noel Coward's verbal architecture while Burton, the trained stage veteran, struggles to anchor the proceedings with actorly skill; Burton's frequent quoting from Shakespeare to express powerful feelings, reflective of his early absorption of and inner devotion to the classics of literature which not only fueled his youthful rise to success but sustained him through subsequent decades of personal and artistic dissolution.

This is the second biopic about this pair in the last year, the previous one being the forgettable quickie starring Lindsay Lohan. "Burton and Taylor" manages to obliterate its predecessor.

... among those real lives -- that were so publicly replete with drama, drink, drugs, fame, fortune, travel, stage & screen, luxury, lust, affairs, and marriages (whew!) -- the movie has an appeal.

Partly, as a chance to catch a slowed-down glimpse into just one period of their lives.

Mostly, though, to experience Helena Bonham Carter's sublime performance as well as that of Dominic West. Their voices and mannerisms were spot-on.

I read that Helena was terrified to play the part of Elizabeth Taylor (understandable). But it seems then that fear is her muse because she was, quite simply, remarkable.

I wonder if Hollywood could tap her again for another Liz movie. There's certainly enough material for a series...