'Burton and Taylor' review: Utter success

But what this film really wants to do is reaffirm the necessity side of that equation. Their lives may have been volcanic, their marriages of the serial kind, but some intractable force always brought Burton and Taylor back together -- a force that made them both whole and fractured. This could be the stuff of cliche, except that Bonham Carter and West navigate the roles deftly, as twin towers of narcissism diminished by booze, pills, advancing years and each other.

The conceit of "Private Lives" is clever, too -- plays end, so do great love affairs -- but it also provides an effective framework for a story with a beginning, middle and end. That's a necessity for one as sprawling and operatic as Burton and Taylor's. This one even feels like it's worth telling.

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