ThiefHott Too much of everything

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

HotToastyRag I was very excited to watch X,Y, and Zee, since I absolutely love Michael Caine and the plot synopsis made me think Elizabeth Taylor would shine in a villainous role. I'll cut to the chase: this is a fantastic movie. But it wasn't at all what I was led to believe.According to IMDb, Liz plays a "venomous and amoral" woman who "tries, any way she can, to break up the blossoming romance" between Michael Caine and Susannah York. That sounds fun, but that isn't the story. Liz and Michael are a happy, sexy married couple, but for no reason exposed at the time, Michael hits heavily on Susannah at a party. He tells her he wants to have an affair with her, and Liz can smell trouble from across the room, so she strikes up a conversation with the soon-to-be other woman and tries to stress how happy their marriage is. It doesn't work, and soon Michael and Susannah have an affair.Here's where it gets fascinating. There's much more than a love triangle in this movie. It's a movie about two couples: Michael and Liz, and Michael and Susannah. At first, the dynamics seem completely different. With Liz, there's fighting, quips, screams, violence, and drama. With Susannah, there's quiet, calm, and domesticity. As the movie continues, the black and white blends into intriguing grays. Susannah starts to show the promise of drama; Liz shows her deeper love and desire for a quiet family life. The realism makes you cringe. It's almost embarrassing to watch because you feel like you're intruding on their lives.And the most interesting part of the story? Liz knows her husband has a mistress. He comes and goes as he pleases, and although a divorce is not threatened or promised, no one seems to ask the question, "Why can't you choose?" He doesn't leave his wife; he just inserts another woman into the picture. This gives Liz hope. This is her motivation. Whatever she does to try and get him back is motivated by intense love. It's beautiful and sad, and it makes you question how far you'd go to keep the love of your life.By the way, I didn't give any spoilers. Everything I described is shown to the audience during the first 20-30 minutes of the movie, so don't worry. X,Y, and Zee is the type of movie that makes you want to talk about it afterwards. I loved it. I loved how it made me think about the characters, the questions it posed, and the unexpected sympathies it drew. And earning great respect in my book, the movie shies away from nudity or sex scenes, but it's incredibly steamy. Put the kids to bed and watch this one with your honeybun. It'll be a lot of fun!

jovana-13676 I only came here to see La Liz in caftans and big hair and violet eye shadow overload, playing her tabloid self, and I leave satisfied. Michael Caine transforms from Stella's (Susannah York) dream lover to a Peckham vulgarian husband, depending on a woman that happens to be next to him. Caine and Taylor are fun to watch, while Susannah York's Stella, looking like a Pre-Raphaelite princess, seems out of place surrounded by the garish furniture and over the top costumes. A really horrible production design that makes a great backdrop for Zee (Taylor) and she wallows in it. You cannot not like the soap opera quality of it. The film can't decide whether it's a drama or a comedy, but I guess Susannah York's character somehow keeps it balanced, preventing it from being utterly silly.

moonspinner55 An original screenplay from Edna O'Brien about a married British architect whose extramarital affair with a pretty, placid boutique owner plays havoc in his relationship with his catty, cunning spouse--a woman with a wild-party lifestyle who spends her spare time plotting to arouse her husband in various ways. As the jabbing, biting Zee Blakeley, Elizabeth Taylor channels both her Leonora from "Reflections in a Golden Eye" and, most especially, Martha from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"; although this is really just a gaudy soap opera, the actress seems to relish her blowzy role, giving it some thought and also some pathos when she's not hooping and hollering, drunk or sober. Michael Caine is a formidable match for Taylor, though in an entirely different key; he adjusts his performance to underscore her rhythm and gives us the sense of a marriage that has seen many dark days. As the widowed mother of two who comes between them, Susannah York is rather an enigma, and O'Brien's turning the character into a woman with secrets in her closet doesn't quite come off (it plays like a stunt, and carries over to the finale). The piece is erratic and exhausting, but certainly not without interest, and Taylor is an entertainment all by herself. She holds the screen in a tight grasp, with no intention of letting go, and this is enough to keep the picture hypnotically watchable. ** from ****

MGMboy Set in the swinging London scene of the early 1970's, the last gasp of the hippie era clashes with the chic international jet set. The result is this triangular jewel of a movie. Robert Blakeley (Michael Caine) is married to the glamorous, manic and barren Zee (Elizabeth Taylor). Intricate games and a few threads of love hold the marriage together. Into the volatile mix comes Stella, a younger woman who is on the edge and ready for a little shove. Michael Caine and Susannah York are great actors in any right. Mr. Caine particularly shines in this film. However in `X, Y and Zee' both actors are blown off the screen by an inspired comic performance by Elizabeth Taylor. Not often given the chance to play comedy she turns in a well-timed and poignantly funny performance in this Black Comedy of marriage, sexual confusion, and social boredom. It is sad that Miss Taylor was mostly relegated to dramas and not allowed often enough to stretch her comic wings. You can see flashes of her comic abilities in such odd fare as "Boom", "Reflections In A Golden Eye" and "Hammersmith Is Out!" But in this film she soars as a woman of wit and warmth who will stop at nothing to come out on top.