not horrible nor great

Absolutely the worst movie.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

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

"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.

Burton and Taylor is directed by Richard Laxton, written by William Ivory, produced by Lachlan MacKinnon, Andrew Wood and Jessica Pope,music by John Lunn and stars Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter.1983, Elizabeth Taylor(Helena Bonham Carter) invites her twice ex-husband Richard Burton(Dominic West) to her fiftieth birthday party where he considers her proposal that they star in a new stage adaptation of Noel Coward's play "Private Lives".When the news is announced to the press, there's speculation that the couple may get back together again. Elizabeth hopes for this but Burton(although he still loves her)has moved on from their life together and has a new girlfriend(later his last wife)Sally. Burton's also frail physically as a lifetime of hard drinking takes it toll on him. He's worried that he won't be able to play the role of King Lear after this play because it will too demanding for him, Elizabeth assures him he's just being silly.When the play opens it becomes clear to both of them that the audience are just there to see Burton/Taylor and it's almost as if the play becomes about their life together. As the couple argue off stage Elizabeth takes it out on Burton on stage, physically hitting him(in real life he was very, very frail during the run and she did hurt him when she did that)and playing up to audience, talking directly to them on several occasions and acknowledging their cheers mid performance! This is very poignant film looking at the last act in the Taylor/Burton love story. The two loved each other very much and after their divorces Burton still wrote to Taylor and they phoned each other a lot. He couldn't take Taylor's drinking and pill popping though nor her entourage who seemed to be around all the time. They couldn't be together but they couldn't be apart either. Dominic does an excellent job as the weary Burton however he doesn't look nearly as old or frail as Burton was during the plays run. Burton was only in his early fifties but looked seventy and although they mention his nerve pain and frailness it doesn't register just how ill he actually was.Onto Burton's voice and the performances, Dominic gives it a good go but never captures Burton's iconic voice perfectly(the only person I've ever heard do an accurate impression is Frank Gorshin during a comedy roast)but you believe he is Richard so it doesn't really matter. He captures the emotional torment of the man perfectly. Likewise with Helena she portrays the boozy, depressed Elizabeth very well and you believe it's Taylor you're watching.Those little complaints about the portrayal of Burton's health aside this is a very well made BBC4 film about the couple and is moving, funny and brilliantly acted. Well worth a watch especially for fans of the couple.