One of my all time favorites.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This film was made when Liz and Dick were at their very peak of celebrity and treated like royalty wherever they went. Liz here is breathtakingly beautiful and Burton is much more handsome than I recall. But it's Eva Marie Saint who very nearly walks off with the film. Her every scene is stunningly created so that you really get into her character in a way that never happens with Liz and Dick. The scenery is gorgeous, making Big Sur famous overnight but even that great natural beauty fades in comparison with La Liz who will always be the most beautiful woman in film bar none. But Burton comes across very effectively and really carries the acting laurels in this film. He is surprisingly good and you really understand what he is going through as he tries to find his find through the dark corridors of love.

Liz Taylor plays a pre-hippie who lives in a "shack" (prime real estate in real life) by the sea. She paints already-finished works of art. The sandpiper is an injured bird whose wing she helps to heal, although the sandpiper is an obvious metaphor for for the free-spirited Liz.She hangs around in designer clothes with her hair perfectly coiffed, which makes it hard to take seriously her role as free-spirited nonconformist. At one point she shows up at her son's school in a fashionable yellow dress and large white hat. After seeing the interior of her "shack", I couldn't help wondering where she keeps all those clothes. Blue jeans and T-shirts (braless) would have been more realistic as attire for her beach-bum life style. Oh well.Richard Burton cannot resist her allure despite his religious convictions and his marriage to Eva Marie Saint.They fall in love, all the while spouting soliloquies about life, love, the existence or non-existence of God, etc. In one scene, where they are on the beach, Liz is espousing philosophy and the wind keeps whipping her hair into her face and I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't pin in back for that scene. In another scene, as Liz is pontificating again, the sandpiper perches on her head! (How did they get it to do that? ha ha ) Liz is made out to be the wiser of the two, Richard Burton being tied down to such terrible things as responsibility and fidelity.Despite being madly in love in real life, I couldn't see a lot of chemistry between them.I watched this because I read the book "Furious Love" - a really good book by the way. The movies they made together are documented in it so I was motivated to watch their films. So now I have seen this one and it's on the "Taming of the Shrew."

This is a very compelling love story, full of truth and pain.The movie starts out slowly and beautifully with sweeping vistas of the Pacific coast of California. Romance infuses the film like the crashing surf sending up a spray beside free spirit Laura's beach-front home. This movie was made early in the first marriage of its stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and the chemistry between them is palpable. One really senses the painful conflict Burton experiences in the presence of a woman he finds so enticing -- as his loyal, responsible, conventional wife buys into his increasingly outrageous lies.The film seems prescient in anticipating the women's movement and conveys some timeless verities about temptation and guilt.Taylor excels in exuding a raw sexuality along with real psychological complexity.I found the artwork Laura created to be worse than poor, and since it was taken seriously in the film perhaps a little more work should have gone into providing better examples of her creativity.This quibble is minor in light of the quality of the rest of the film.

This is a gorgeous movie. Yes, it is a sort of soap opera but many facets of it are brilliant. The cinematography and score are excellent but the real star is Richard Burton. That Welsh accent penetrates every scene like a hot poker through plastic. It is like a flat sea with sharks in it. Burton sounds very much like Dylan Thomas; note the pronunciation of the word "boy". Like Thomas, he pronounces the word as if there was an "a" right under the "o" that is more felt than heard.Taylor seems to be following him everywhere he leads, in opposition to the roles played, as Burton evokes a performance from her that is replayed in her future works.