To me, this movie is perfection.

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It's 1983. Elizabeth Taylor (Helena Bonham Carter) and her twice ex-husband Richard Burton (Dominic West) are going to star in the revival of Noel Coward play 'Private Lives'. The media speculation is rampant with Taylor's help. She's popping pills. He keeps giving her notes on stage acting. He starts drinking again. The play is panned by the critics but popular with the fans who are rabid for the reunion. He marries his girlfriend and the two actors conflict.It has a couple of good performances in a rather bland telling of a minor part of these icons' turbulent love affair. It's the writing and probably the directing that let this down. It plays more like a Lifetime TV movie. It doesn't have the bite. There is a great opportunity to add other characters into their relationship. This is begging to include Burton's girlfriend. There is great drama here but the movie doesn't take full advantage.

The DVD of this BBC film for television is yet to be released in the US so the first introduction to what is actually a very fine film was presented to the American audience in piece meal fashion on the BBC network: 7 minutes of story then 4 minutes of commercials then 7 more minutes of story, etc - for 2 hours. It grows wearisome to see two character studies so well sculpted cut up into a puzzle by commercialism's greed. The uninterrupted DVD should correct that flaw and will likely be a stunning experience. Richard Laxton directs a screenplay by William Ivory (no, not THAT Ivory family...), but the kudos for the success of this film go to Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West who manage to reincarnate Li and Dick with consummate skill.Elizabeth Taylor (Helena Bonham Carter) invites her ex-husband - twice married, twice divorced in one of the last century's most tempestuous and media focused couplings - Richard Burton (Dominic West) to her fiftieth birthday party where, as a recovering alcoholic, he refuses to get drunk with her. She obviously still retains her obsession and passion for him and suggests that they star in a stage revival of Noël Coward's play Private Lives that Liz is to produce. The agreement and announcement causes gossip with the press who speculate a possible romantic reconciliation. With a new girlfriend and the prospect of playing King Lear, Burton is not happy with the project, especially with Taylor's pill-popping and her lack of stage experience, which causes problems at rehearsals: Taylor has not even read the play before day 1 of the rehearsals. The play opens to a critical trashing but is extremely popular with audiences because they want to see Liz Taylor and, when she is ill, numbers dwindle and the show is put on hold. After a two-month run, with a projected tour, the curtain comes down and Taylor tells Burton she has always loved him and still does. Richard and Elizabeth go their separate ways, but they did sort out their differences and remain friends, and apparently they only communicated by telephone and letter, until his death in 1984. Taylor died in 2011.The supporting cast, especially Lenora Crichlow as Liz' dresser Chen Sam and Stanley Townsend as the play's director Milton Katselas, is strong for the small amount of time they are on screen. The spectacle is the obsessive relationship between two very strong characters and fortunately both actors give excellent impersonations and recreations. We are allowed to see and understand their differences and frustrations. Grady Harp

... 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...

This film was made on the anniversary of thirty years since the famous celebrity couple, who married twice, last performed together, and it was two years since the actress, to some the last living legend of the Golden Years of Hollywood, died in 2011, so a (television made) film about them made sense. Basically, set in 1983, movie stars Richard Burton (Dominic West) and Elizabeth Taylor (Helena Bonham Carter) have not seen each other for a little while, perhaps since their second divorce. They are reuniting in London for a theatrical production of the Noël Coward play Private Lives, and despite no longer being married it is obvious there may still be some form of feelings between them, both bitter and longing, but they try to continue and concentrate on work. But more than anything Richard is becoming increasingly frustrated with Elizabeth, who struggles to learn her lines having not practised them properly, failing to arrive on time for scheduled rehearsals and other occasions, and trying to upstage him to get the bigger reaction from the audiences. In the end Richard and Elizabeth go their separate ways, but they did sort out their differences and remain friends, and apparently they only communicated by telephone and letter, until his death in 1984. Also starring Being Human's Lenora Crichlow as Chen Sam, Miranda's Sarah Hadland as Kathryn Walker, William Hope as John Cullum, Michael Jibson as Mike, Lucille Sharp as Liza Todd Burton and Isabella Brazier-Jones as Maria Burton. The real Burton and Taylor were making news all the time because of their turbulent relationship, and besides their great acting talents they became part of public consciousness, and the performances by Bonham and Cooper playing them is believable and terrific, as they look and sound the parts, and it is an interesting enough story, so not a bad drama. Good!