An evening with Liberace

Yesterday, my friend and I went to see Behind The Candalabra. Before she mentioned it to me, I hadn't heard of it. When she said it was about Liberace, I still didn't have that much idea what was coming.

In all honesty, Liberace is a name I've heard plenty of times but couldn't have pinned it down to anything if you'd asked me. Somewhere in my mind, I thought he was connected to music but I also thought he was perhaps a general in the army during the war. I also had a feeling he was an artist. Basically, I had no idea what to expect when going to see this film.

Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil it for you if you haven't seen it but I'll give you the general gist.

A young boy, Scott Thorson, has a chance meeting with Liberace after seeing one of his concerts with a mutual friend. A relationship develops and continues on for many years, despite Liberace's cover story for the public, that he is engaged to a woman.

The thing that got me thinking in this film was the situation that Scott finds himself in. He is your average Joe. He'd had a difficult upbringing. He was living in foster care at the time. He was only 16 years old. Then he went to see a concert with a friend and suddenly he's entered this crazy world of money and cars and fur coats and plastic surgery.

O yes, the plastic surgery, I forgot to mention the plastic surgery. The relationship between Liberace and Scott takes a funny turn when Liberace adopts Scott and pays for him to have plastic surgery to look like himself. Yep. (Rob Lowe plays a fantastic role as the plastic surgeon, by the way.)

Imagine you were seeing a concert, of Beyonce perhaps. And by crazy coincidence, you got to see her backstage. And imagine she invited you to lunch at her house the next day. And her house was massive and full of gold things and she wore loads of rings and fur coats and necklaces. And imagine you and Beyonce had a relationship and you started wearing all the fancy fur coats too and had three or four cars. And imagine you became part of her stage act and lived in a world of craziness and money. And you had your face changed through plastic surgery to look like hers.

I mean, it's crazy talk. But it really happened to an ordinary boy. It's just incomprehensible, the wackiness of the world that Hollywood stars live in.

So now, I have to read the book. Do you ever get that? You leave the cinema and you're already downloading the book?

Anyway, people, go and see this film. It's funny, it's brilliantly filmed, it's extravagant and it is a feast for the eyes. The costume designer must have had a party on this set!