Behind the Candelabra

 An HBO production by Soderbergh.

If I was up for a charming romantic film I had to choose a different road. This is one of the most unromantic romances I’ve seen lately. Certainly not charming and warming but rather obnoxious and repugnant. But that’s also the true essence of the relationship. And if I was up for an amusing film too, I should have taken a different road as I didn’t laugh once. That’s how I took this story and the film. Setting aside expectations, I thought over all this film would be something else.

I’m not a huge fan of Behind the Candelabra not because the romance wasn’t romantic but because it’s really difficult to have any kind of sympathy for the protagonists and because the story could have been something else, especially because there’s a good storyline going on, the strange relationships that could get all indescribable and messed up in a moment in time were gay relationships weren’t accepted and because of that it could have gotten to the point where an older man would adopt his younger lover.

When everything looks interesting around them, the set decoration and the costume design, all the glamour, literally and figuratively, the portrait of Candelabra’s surroundings, I don’t think the story was outstanding. Of course Michael Douglas puts himself out there with this charismatic character, he’s both repugnantly selfish and sometimes attentive, rarely and if not for his own interest, and so does Matt Damon, who tries to share or express some of what was inside that young man’s head, if there was anything there. This being said, I don’t really care about them, although they’re still an interesting case.