It seems like it was inevitable to finally get a biographical film on the legendary rock band that still resonate with people to this day, Queen named after their most iconic song Bohemian Rhapsody. This has been a long, chaotic production for some time now, with stars coming and going to play the front man himself, Freddie Mercury along with the production troubles involving Bryan Singer getting fired for misconduct on set with Dexter Fletcher (actor/director of the upcoming Elton John Biography musical drama, Rocketman) replacing him for a good chunk of the film’s production. It is a miracle that this film finally made it to the big screen in a presentable fashion for the audiences to watch and enjoy in its completed form, despite the drama that has engulfed the film’s production for years now. Does it come together as a compelling and insightful rock odyssey that captures the reason behind the memorable music of Queen or does it miss a few notes in key creative areas that keep it from being just as fantastic or memorable as other music biographical films? Let’s rock the night away and play our way into the story for the film.
We follow
prominently the front man of the band, Freddie Mercury formerly Farrokh Bulsara
(Rami Malek) as he works a dead-end job at an airport but writes out some songs
for himself to sing soon. His family are
fine with him drifting to figure out where he wants to go with his life except
his father Bomi Bulsara (Ace Bhatti), who urges him to find some way to help
the world with his voice and make his mark on the world but disapproves of his
son’s unwavering belief that music is the way to do that. He comes across the band Smiles at a local
college gig and notices Brian May (Gwilym Lee), lead guitarist and Roger Taylor
(Ben Hardy), drummer of the band along with their singer Tim Staffell (Jack Roth). They unfortunately lose him and Farrokh takes
this chance to become the new singer of the band as well as meeting his future wife/longtime
friend Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton). They
would eventually rename the band Queen and would play a few songs that would
put them on the radar of the crowd that heard them and eventually the record
executives of EMI that would eventually give them their big break.
This would
lead to a quick run-through of many of the popular songs that they would create
amongst themselves as well as obtain their bass player John Deacon (Joseph
Mazzello) eventually and the band was off to success. However, as the band grew famous and popular,
Farrokh would change his name to Freddie Mercury and would become driven by his
desire to reach many people as well as his desire to be heard as a musician. This would lead to a struggle of identity
crisis with Mercury and his sexuality as well as the rampant drug use that
would affect him emotionally but would drive him and the band to create their
best work through the 70’s and early 80’s.
Mercury would go on to continuously have arguments and struggle with his
gender role, especially when it is affected negatively by his boyfriend/manager
Paul Prenter (Allen Leech). It becomes a
tale of finding the notes in their work and life that would define who they are
and eventually become the rock band that was truly innovative to cross genres
and barriers in ways that are still felt today.
From that
summary alone, that sounds like an epic, fitting take on the iconic band but in
reality, it was made and written in such a conventional matter that lacks a
committed focus and passionate drive for this story to be exciting to sit
through. To get to the heart of why the
film has been criticize for being a typical biographical rag to riches, is that
the story really zips through so much history on the band (15 years to be
exact) that it was always going to be challenging to remain faithful to their
story and rely heavily on embellishment/rearrangements of time to convey the
band’s style of music. This is done with
mixed results as they do cover the main beats of the band’s history but mainly
on Freddie Mercury as well as his struggle regarding drug abuse and
sexuality. It is touched upon and
appreciated that they mention it despite kind of hand waving him admitting his
bi-sexuality and just out right saying he is gay (informed that the dialogue
was based on the wife’s account of him coming out to her, one of the few effective
dramatic scenes) as well as not showing him doing drugs (which makes no sense
since in another Bio Pic recently Ray,
we see Ray actually shoot up heroin visually in a PG-13 rated film, so no
excuses here for sanitizing Queen’s story this way). It is also kind of odd and missed
opportunities to provide any form of character development to the band members
outside of their interactions with each other and their capabilities as
musicians/writers.
However,
the film does shine in a few spots that keep it from being a complete mess of a
film, especially in recreating the stylized looks and feel of Queen’s music in
their concert montages and the climax of the film, Live AID. That climatic concert recreation is one of
the finest sequences for this type of story as well as literally getting many
of the small details scarily accurate from Mercury’s movement throughout the
performance, playful energy with the camera guys, and the different hits
improvised into each other for their performance that day. This goes for the montages as well,
replicating the look and energy of the concert performances extremely well to
what was documented of their performances.
These sequences as well as Malek memorable performance is what keeps
this film from being a complete waste of time as well as really capturing the
excitement and energy of their music perfectly in an entertaining way, even if
the story is shallow and does not offer any meaningful insight into the band
themselves outside of Mercury and the odd yet creatively miscalculated
liberties taken with their history in the songs as well as the whole 3rd
act itself, revolving around the dramatic beats in them.
Let’s get
to the cast now, and we must start with the man leading the charge, Freddie
Mercury played by Rami Malek. In portraying the iconic rock star on the stage
and through the music, he absolutely nails the persona pitch perfectly and even
gets his mannerisms down to a science.
He truly makes each of the montage sequences and the Live AID concert
climax truly pop out with his commanding and energized performance. He is the biggest positive of the main cast
that he truly outshines the majority of the performances in this film in
positive but also negative ways ironically enough. This is truly worth praising and appreciating
the acting talent and effort put into channeling the best of Mercury on
stage. However, it isn’t quite as pitch
perfect as many believe to be, specifically in the scenes when he is not
performing on stage to reflect the man behind the persona.
This is
where the criticism for his performance will be mentioned, starting with the
obvious and certain questionable choices and elements that keep it from a major
contender for award recognition. The
obvious is the odd placement of his enlarged front teeth, as Malek clearly is
using a prosthetic but it gets in the way of the first half of his performance
and clearly leads to some unintentional goofiness but he does get used to them
in the latter half of the film. There
was much discussion and arguments over the way to display his sexuality and
love life with the focus on Austin and Mercury being the most carefully and
effectively handled part of his story but anytime it focused on his gay life
immersion, it comes across a bit garishly flamboyant and over the top to the
point where it really feels a bit disingenuous and narrow sighted as to how his
sexuality drove his desire to be reserved and private about his
bisexuality. That and they may have
shown that side of Mercury to be too outlandish and comes across as an
assumption rather than a truthful account on part from the writer Anthony
McCarten and the accounts of May and Taylor influencing the story to its own
detriment. It is still an incredible
performance from Malek when capturing his stage persona with flying colors but
not so much the man behind the curtains as they went for something more
conventional and ultimately unengaging to sit through.
As for the
band themselves, there are a few times where they do provide the necessary
interactions with Mercury and amongst themselves respectively. The most prominently featured band member
throughout the film is Brian May played by Gwilym Lee and he is the best
lookalike for the actual guitarist as well as getting his mannerisms down pat
as well as showcasing his amazing guitar skills, despite disappearing with the
rest of the band in the middle of the film for Mercury’s personal story arc. The other is Roger Taylor played by Ben Hardy,
providing much of the internal band conflict with the musical direction of the
band and is provided with some notable dramatic scenes in the film. The last prominent member is John Deacon
played by Joseph Mazzello (the adult actor that was actually the dinosaur
enthusiast kid from Jurrasic Park)
and he portrays the bass player of the band and he is mostly in the background,
further displaying the hollow nature of the story being told here. The actors portraying the band are reliably
good but are not given much to know more about themselves outside of their
abilities, interactions, and contribution to many of the songs they created individually
and together.
The love
interests and villain of this story range from being remarkably likable to
worth despising in regards to their roles in this dramatic version of the
story. Mary Austin played by
Lucy
Boynton plays the most important figure in Freddie’s life and she handles it well
enough but really shines in her scene with Mercury coming out, despite the
creative choices made in regards to that storyline. His personal manager and eventual lover Paul
Prenter played by Allen Leech provides much of the conflict with Freddie’s personal
life as well as his sexuality during his later years and while a necessary
story to tell, it is approached very conventional in regards to the romantic
story beats and does not resonate as strongly as the story arc with Austin and
Freddie. His last and prominent lover
Jim Hutton played by Aaron McCusker, is only featured in the last act of the
film and was given some brief moments with Mercury despite being a major part
of Mercury’s life until his untimely passing.
The supporting cast for the love interests were mostly fine despite
their character stories being truncated or condensed through the script,
direction, and editing.
The remaining actors in the cast, are the bit players that appear throughout the film,
mainly the managers and a brief mention of Mercury’s family despite never truly
exploring that part of Mercury’s personal life.
We first have Aidan Gillen as John Reid, Queen’s main manager for most
of the film’s story and he seems to be suitably in a role requiring him to be a
planner as usual, along with Tom Hollander as Jim Beach (lawyer and eventual
manager of the later band years), making for proper and dependable casting for
those managers. His family are only in the film for a few brief scenes and it feels like a missed opportunity to explore Mercury's life with his family, despite giving the overall goal for Mercury in his journey. There is the odd casting
of Mike Myers as an EMI executive, mainly there for fan service and puts on a ridiculous
Irish accent that is reminiscent of his pervious caricatures. The cast are mostly good with at least a few
standouts from the supporting cast but mainly, Rami Malek is the one who leads
this cast and provides one of the most energized performances from a lead role,
this year.
We finally get to the technical elements of the film starting with the cinematography (Newton Thomas Sigel) and editing (John Ottman) of the film. There are extensive use of sets and studios to recreate the concert setups and time period of each song as accurately as possible. They mostly get it right in that regard but where the film does get a bit flimsy is the editing as it relies heavily on flashy, fast music video style energy and look to capture the rhythm and energy of the songs to mix results. However, it does have some gorgeous recreations and shots in the film as well as the editing being effective for some of the montages along with the amazing climax and exclusively, the Screen X version utilizes the border projectors to good use, to give more information and stylize the montage sequences for each song with their own unique visual flair to them. It does get a bit annoying and exhausting for each transition to be connected via a musical montage in a flimsy way but it does provide some quality to the editing that might attract newcomers and fans of their music in this film.
Next up,
we have the use of art direction and costume designs utilized in this film, especially
for a time period piece as well as the unique clothing they wore for the time. The art direction is very much on point with
the appropriate settings captured during the years of 1970’s and 80’s,
especially in regards to the concerts and the Live AID climax. Each of the sections really showcases the
band’s rise in fame and fortune as well as a part of that stylized hair metal
looks popular during the time. Julian
Day was the costume designer on this and each look that Malek wears especially
in the concert montages are nothing short of amazingly accurate and capture the
stage presence perfectly. She was able
to really showcase the visual changes of each of the characters and really add
to the believability of their performances with how close the band members
looked to their real-life counterparts and the visual aesthetics of the music
performances.
Lastly, the
most prominent section of a film to explore, specifically for a music biographical
film, the sound design and music itself.
The mix for the film is actually very bass heavy in a quality theater
sound setup and does it really show, especially in hearing their music on the
big screen. There is the obvious use of lip-synching
involved, which is expected for this type of film but it is not too distraction
or detrimental to the film in any major way.
Most of the songs used in the film are mainly their big hits with a few
of the lesser known ones used during their beginning years. However, some of the iconic music they did do
was left out, not explored, or strangely not mentioned due in part by time constraints,
rights limitations, and from the questionable changes made to the timeline for each
song’s creations. It’s still a solid
effort to encompass the best of Queen through sound design and the music used
for this film.
Ultimately,
what it comes down to is expectations and what the viewers wants out of a Queen
centered biography drama? Was it to get a best of compilation of their lives and
music that celebrates the band in a fun, entertaining popcorn way or an insightful,
compelling drama of what drove each member of the band as well as Mercury to
create music that would not only reflect themselves but shape the style of
music for generations? You are getting more of the first than the second,
despite a few scenes and sections that seem to touch on those personal memories
of the band members and acknowledge them but unfortunately approaches them in a broad matter and lacks the emotional punch needed to give viewers an understanding of
how the band become not only popular but created music that is still heard and
replicated to this day. It plays it safe
by making an entertaining crowd-pleasing greatest hit medley of the band itself,
and no more than that.
Score: ***
out of *****
Bohemian Rhapsody is a fun encapsulation of the band
at their best and most iconic, even down to the struggles of Freddie Mercury as
the lead singer and his conflicted life style.
However, the film is only concerned with showcasing the band in general,
and not bother with the details which ends up not really giving viewers an
understanding of the band personally and providing information that would shed
better light on their lives in the band as well as how they are this skilled/talented
in their respective roles in the band. What
keeps it from completely falling apart is the visually stunning, energetically
edited musical montages in the concert transitions and the meticulously recreated
Live AID performance that serves as a bookend to their story. When the music is playing loud and strong
along with the actors playing up to the stage personas, the film fires on all
cylinders and it makes for a rollicking good time. However, the dramatic and personal moments
are either lacking and only touch upon them in regards to how it shapes their
characters in the story and real life.
This is a best of look into the iconic band and for big fans and regular
viewers, it is still a good time to rock out but do not expect to learn or feel
anything meaningful about the band by the time the party comes to an end.
