Friday, December 21, 2018

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018, PG-13)



*Disclaimer: Okay, so the whole second half of my added disclaimers for the year are basically a requiem for my fandom of Bryan Singer. This is the only Singer film (yes, Dexter Fletcher took over after he was fired, but Singer is still the credited director) that I saw after the TimesUp-era rumors started resurfacing. Even though, as I’ve said, these were far from the first allegations I heard against Singer, I was far more ready to listen to them this time. In light of that, I was uncomfortable with the idea of seeing Bohemian Rhapsody, but I still saw it. If I were doing this again today, I’d hope I would choose not to see the movie.*
 

I debated on seeing this movie, even though spending a couple hours listening to Queen music is my idea of a good time and it looked like Rami Malek was pretty awesome in it.  There was the Bryan Singer of it all – even though he was fired and replaced halfway through filming, he’s still given the director credit – as well as rumblings that the movie downplayed Freddie Mercury’s bisexuality.  As it stands, I wound up splitting the difference and seeing the movie about five weeks in, still contributing to the box office but not the opening numbers.

In England in the 1970s, Farrokh Bulsara finds an in with a band in need of a new lead singer.  Changing his own name (to Freddie Mercury) and the band’s (to Queen,) he meshes his bold ideas with those of his bandmates, and they set out to constantly reinvent their own sound, the radio waves, and the concert-going experience.

We’ll get this out of the way first:  the concert scenes are everything, and it goes without saying that the climactic Live Aid sequence is incredible.  Using Freddie’s real vocals wherever possible was absolutely the right choice – it may feel like a bit of a cheat at first glance, but 1) everyone involved has been very upfront about it, and 2) it’s worlds better than sitting through the movie preoccupied with how much the singing doesn’t sound like Freddie’s.  So yes, that’s not Malek’s voice, but he’s every bit as amazing as you’d expect as Freddie.  His physicality is a force to be reckoned with, and he does a great job balancing Freddie’s audacious showman side with his insecurities and emotional vulnerability.  Malek is electric to watch from start to finish.

The actors playing Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon don’t get nearly as much front-and-center time as Malek, but all three turn in really nice performances as well.  They sell the “Queen is a family of misfits loved by misfits” angle, and I appreciate that, even though Freddie is depicted as the biggest visionary, the other three are still shown making revelatory contributions to iconic songs.  I love the scene where Freddie tries to sell a producer on the outlandish notion of A Night at the Opera and the other three back him up every step of the way. 

My interest lessens a little whenever the movie moves away from the songs into the Behind the Music-y plot of the characters’ (mostly Freddie’s) personal lives.  There’s the sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll stuff, in-fighting as Freddie’s star grows and opportunists move in, and the loneliness of being universally adored but still not feeling known.  Much of this is well-worn territory for musician biopics.  I don’t know enough to say how accurate any of it is, so I’m no help there.  But it does feel rather been-there done-that, even though, again, that’s kind of the name of the game for movies like this.

Now, how about Freddie’s sexuality?  I’d say my earlier fears – that the movie only pays lip service to his attraction to men and ends before addressing HIV – are unfounded.  The movie doesn’t portray Freddie succumbing to AIDS, but I don’t think I would’ve wanted it to.  It’s better framing it as it does, with the knowledge of what’s to come but not giving into it, not yet.  And as for Freddie’s attraction to men, it’s not ignored at all – if anything, the bi erasure leans a bit the other way.  While Freddie does haltingly come out as bi to his wife Mary, she confidently replies, “Freddie, you’re gay,” and every sexual and/or romantic encounter we see after that is with a guy.  It’s certainly within reason for people in Freddie’s life to label him as gay instead of bi (even today, that happens a lot,) but I wish there was more in the film to counter than false notion.  On the flipside, though, we see a greater emphasis on love with Mary and implied sex with men, many of them nameless.  To be fair, we do see evidence of Freddie looking for love and struggling to find it, but the overall effect does make most of his encounters with men feel colder than his relationship with Mary.

In addition to the tremendous Malek and the actors playing the other three bandmates (Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, and Joe Mazzello, none of whom I really know,) the film features some familiar faces.  Mike Myers has an enjoyable cameo, and the always-reliable Tom Hollander has a featured role.  We also get a hat trick of Irish actors from TV:  Aiden Gillen (Littlefinger on Game of Thrones,) Allen Leech (Branson on Downton Abbey,) and Aaron McCusker (Jamie Maguire on the U.K. version of Shameless.)

Warnings

Sexual content, drinking/smoking/drug use, language (including racial slurs,) and strong thematic elements.

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