In all fairness, this is something that could had worked out well and
it wasn't a bad idea to start with. After all, the relationship between
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton always had been a very lively and
interesting one but this particular movie does a very poor job at
bringing it to the screen.
This movie basically does an excellent job at telling you absolutely nothing. I wouldn't even call this a biography, since it purely focuses on the Liz and Dick relationship but never on the actual persons, their careers or stories surrounding them. Please don't watch this movie expecting to learn a whole bunch about either Elizabeth Taylor or Richard Burton, or old Hollywood for that matter. Watching this is a very shallow experience and there are more reasons as to why that's the case.
The movie features some absolutely horrible storytelling. I don't believe I'm exaggerating when I say that none of the scene's in this movie last longer than 45 seconds. It's rushed and feels all over the place. It glosses over a whole bunch of stuff, as if it's nothing. Basically the way this entire movie feels is like a bunch of different and separate loose scene's that chronicle Elizabeth Taylor- and Richard Burton's relationship, without ever feeling well connected to each other. Because of this it also gets very hard to ever care about anyone- or anything, that's happening in this movie.
It's also annoying how the movie constantly repeats itself; Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton have the fight, the next scene they make up again. The following moment they are quarreling, the next they are buying gifts for each other to make up again. And this happens over and over again. It doesn't matter whether or not this also was the case in real life for Burton and Taylor but what does matters is that it works out tiring and not involving enough for this movie. It's bad and dull storytelling, that besides never gets deep and explains to you the how's and why's of their relationship and the effects it had on their further lives and careers.
And no, it's not at all like Lindsay Lohan is ruining this movie. Of course she is an odd choice to play Elizabeth Taylor because of her looks, age and acting range but I just can't ever say her presence ruined anything. Perhaps it's true that was all due to it that the story wasn't an all that demanding and well written one, so she hardly had anything to do and the movie pretty much got ruined by its own story already to begin with. If I still have to say something negative about her, it would be that it looks and feels too much like she is playing a caricature of Elizabeth Taylor with all of her little mannerisms but she never becomes the part. It's like she was too focused on behaving like Taylor but not focused enough on truly acting like her and acting in general.
But also since this is a TV production I'm really not complaining too much about its acting or production values. You already should have lowered your expectations when watching a made for TV production but still, even in that light this remains a very lacking production.
Just a too shallow and uninteresting movie experience, which all could be blamed for most part on its story and especially storytelling.
4/10
This movie basically does an excellent job at telling you absolutely nothing. I wouldn't even call this a biography, since it purely focuses on the Liz and Dick relationship but never on the actual persons, their careers or stories surrounding them. Please don't watch this movie expecting to learn a whole bunch about either Elizabeth Taylor or Richard Burton, or old Hollywood for that matter. Watching this is a very shallow experience and there are more reasons as to why that's the case.
The movie features some absolutely horrible storytelling. I don't believe I'm exaggerating when I say that none of the scene's in this movie last longer than 45 seconds. It's rushed and feels all over the place. It glosses over a whole bunch of stuff, as if it's nothing. Basically the way this entire movie feels is like a bunch of different and separate loose scene's that chronicle Elizabeth Taylor- and Richard Burton's relationship, without ever feeling well connected to each other. Because of this it also gets very hard to ever care about anyone- or anything, that's happening in this movie.
It's also annoying how the movie constantly repeats itself; Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton have the fight, the next scene they make up again. The following moment they are quarreling, the next they are buying gifts for each other to make up again. And this happens over and over again. It doesn't matter whether or not this also was the case in real life for Burton and Taylor but what does matters is that it works out tiring and not involving enough for this movie. It's bad and dull storytelling, that besides never gets deep and explains to you the how's and why's of their relationship and the effects it had on their further lives and careers.
And no, it's not at all like Lindsay Lohan is ruining this movie. Of course she is an odd choice to play Elizabeth Taylor because of her looks, age and acting range but I just can't ever say her presence ruined anything. Perhaps it's true that was all due to it that the story wasn't an all that demanding and well written one, so she hardly had anything to do and the movie pretty much got ruined by its own story already to begin with. If I still have to say something negative about her, it would be that it looks and feels too much like she is playing a caricature of Elizabeth Taylor with all of her little mannerisms but she never becomes the part. It's like she was too focused on behaving like Taylor but not focused enough on truly acting like her and acting in general.
But also since this is a TV production I'm really not complaining too much about its acting or production values. You already should have lowered your expectations when watching a made for TV production but still, even in that light this remains a very lacking production.
Just a too shallow and uninteresting movie experience, which all could be blamed for most part on its story and especially storytelling.
4/10
Watch trailer
Too bad this movie wasn't very good! I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Taylor and I think Lohan's costuming looks pretty authentic. :) It would be nice to see Lohan tap back into all that talent she had as a kid.
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