Having seen Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and other Burton and Taylor films countless times, the frustration and bemusement I feel toward Liz & Dick comes in fits and starts. Certainly, their furious love affair cannot be condensed into 90 minutes, nor can it be depicted on such a budget with Lindsay Lohan in the lead role. Grant Bowler looks and sounds vaguely enough like Burton to be passable, but Lohan is ghastly. She's barely earnest enough to pass as campy.
During this viewing, I often times had to explain composite characters or fill in gaps in Burton and Taylor's lives (including a ten year gap between their second marriage and Burton's death!) for the others watching with me. This is in that dangerous biopic territory where the script is too unambiguous for a layperson and too obtuse for diehard fans. Reducing such complicated, passionate people into uninteresting, melodramatic drunkards elicits many a cheap laugh. But watching these pale imitations of great actors recreating scenes from Virginia Woolf makes you wonder when — without a hint of irony — someone will say, "Grant and Lindsay... sad, sad, sad."
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