Boom

Very strange, but oddly compelling drama can't quite seem to make up its mind which aspects of Williams it is most interested in -- the high camp (Taylor's amusing over-the-top harridian), the droll wit (Burton's bemused underplaying) or the fey (Coward who is a scream in his almost cameo); while it is rarely boring, it is hard to comprehend the objective "reality" of anything, which muffles most of the drama. Not helped by Losey's seemingly deliberately obscure direction.

Viewed November 12, 2021. An exercise in 60s excess with a real undercurrent of menace and melancholy underneath the campy performances, ridiculous costumes and lavish sets. Losey constantly exploits that tension; he’s interested in surfaces and distorted perception and the way deceiving appearances inform psychological distress, so it makes sense that his picturesque movie starring one of Hollywood’s most famous couple is as thorny and unsettling as this despite also being hilariously weird

A spectacular misfire!

I don't care, I loved every second of this ridiculous mess. Losey is too good a director to bodge it, so every second was a joy. Especially of interest are Elizabeth Taylor's looney, Jim Jones-esque intercom dictations, complete with a cute reference to Rules Of The Game.

A misguided attempt at... what? There's a lot of talent flailing around here, but the dialogue is so ridiculously awful that I can't imagine why anyone would want to make a movie based on it. I love me some perverse, but this is either too much or far too little... I don't know which.

This low score is not fully in malice, but on an objective level. Subjectively, Liz Taylor reaches another ne plus ultra in a career full of peaks, but not in the way you'd think. She is Camp personified, as in Not To Be Missed. Richard Burton aptly takes a backseat to her virulent madness and lets her tower above all, for better or for worse.

BOOM!