Watch Burton and Taylor For Free

Very disappointing...

Overrated

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

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

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.

In 1983 Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor appeared together on stage for the first and only time in Noel Coward's comedy PRIVATE LIVES. Although critically panned, it sold out for its entire run on Broadway, with audiences flocking to see the sight of two legendary figures bickering with one another. William Ivory's screenplay tells the story of that theatrical performance, focusing in particular on Taylor's (Helena Bonham Carter's) gradually disintegrating state of mind, as she realizes that Burton (Dominic West) has abandoned her for good in favor of his new wife Sally Burton (Cassie Raine). Bonham Carter gives a creditable impersonation of Taylor, even though she lacks that mysterious quality that kept Taylor in the public eye for so many years; in this performance, Taylor comes across as a bit of a hopeless drunk with a penchant for upstaging Burton. West's Burton seems like a dedicated actor; despite his love of money and the Hollywood high life, he never lost his professionalism, even in an obvious turkey like this PRIVATE LIVES, in which Taylor seldom knew her lines and often consciously departed from the script, in full knowledge that the audience didn't give a fig. So long as she appeared on stage, then the houses would remain packed; if she was absent, the box-office suffered as a result. In the end, however, both of them seem rather pathetic figures, mere shadows of their former selves at the height of their popularity during the mid-Sixties. We can't help feeling sorry for two actors who were so fond of the limelight that they never knew when to give up: Burton kept wanting to play King Lear, even though he was both physically and mentally ill-equipped to do so. BURTON AND TAYLOR seems like a requiem for two great stars reduced to mere museum exhibits.

... 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!