Directed by Stanley Donen
My rating: 3.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Fox Movie Channel)
It might be interesting to compare this to Burton's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? made just 3 years earlier. Here, Burton is a middle aged homosexual in a relationship with Rex Harrison. His bed-ridden mom lives in the extra room, to whom he frequently confides. Burton and Harrison trade quips, bicker and argue, just like the couple in Virginia Woolf. Harrison has a child from a previous marriage he hasn't seen in 20 years. He worries what she might think of his current relationship. He's also got a trial date coming up for some ancient law about wearing drag in public, part of his stage act. The dialogue is fast, furious and dense. The insights on human relationships are undeniable, regardless of sexual orientation. It's also laugh-out loud funny in many places. It can be a bit stagy and claustrophobic, like many films based on plays, but the performances are wonderful and I immediately wanted to see it again to listen for dialogue I might have missed the first time around.
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