Liz & Dick: Review

Hello, all! Well, we made it. We got through Lindsay Lohan in Lifetime's Liz & Dick. The first thing I should say is that even though I love Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and I'm an enormous fan of their movies, the way their love story was portrayed in this movie was shallow, vapid and cliche. They were written ridiculously and even though I am sure they both had their moments, I think both of them cared more about acting, movies and theater than the Liz and Dick portrayed in the movie. Also, Elizabeth Taylor was a humanitarian, raising millions for various charities. She wasn't just all booze, partying and temperament. 

Anyway, onto the performances. I'll start with Grant Bowler. You may know Mr. Bowler from HBO'S True Blood playing the role of Cooter. Mr. Bowler actually did an okay job of playing Richard Burton, but lacked any of the gravitas that Mr. Burton possessed. Richard Burton was not so young and not a typical heartthrob when he captured the heart of Liz Taylor, so he clearly had a lot of other things going on with him, Mr. Bowler was fine in the part, but didn't have the chutzpah.

Now let's get to La Lohan. What's so shocking about her performance is that she literally made no attempt to act or sound like Elizabeth Taylor and it's not that she has no mannerisms to imitate, because she definitely does...Lindsay just didn't seem to be able to muster anything up. Also, it's hard to believe they cast her in the first place. First of all, Liz Taylor was a striking woman...also, she had a metallic, recognizable voice. Lindsay's smoker's cough just didn't cut it. On top of a terrible performance, she was poorly made up and was given cheap looking wigs. The costumes were the one thing I liked. I will say though...Lindsay had a few weirdly moving moments in the movie...I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that. It made me think that maybe she was just gigantically miscast and maybe there's a future for her...but this movie is just shockingly bad. It wasn't even as campy as I was hoping .::sigh::. Oh well. 

I WAS happy to see some familiar faces in the supporting cast though: David Eigenberg as Ernest Lehman, and Charles Shaughnessy as Anthony Asquith.