Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman – The Biopic

I tend to write about media I like here, which I suppose is natural.

In the wake of seeing the fantastic Rocketman, however, I am compelled to revisit Bohemian Rhapsody, a film so bad it threatens to damage the legacy of its undoubtedly fascinating subject: Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.

Watching the film is somewhat enjoyable, but in the way a long car ride accompanied by Queen’s Greatest Hits might be. The music is as fun as ever, and Rami Malek is excellent as Mercury, but a mishandled and flimsy narrative is all anyone will remember from this so-called “biopic.”

Despite being born well after Mercury’s 1991 death, even I can say with utmost confidence that very little of this film is how Mercury’s career actually played out. It is as if an AI was asked to watch a bunch of music biopics, read Mercury’s Wikipedia page, and adapt it into a film. Worse, Mercury’s very much R-rated life is somehow filtered into a PG-13 film. While this decision may have been made in the spirit of preserving Mercury’s legacy, it ultimately humiliates and chastises the enigmatic singer for his homosexuality and drug use.

So much of my thoughts on this film are best summarized by this fantastic piece written by Vox’s Alissa Wilkinson, but I am interested in particularly examining why such efforts may have been made to cleanse and preserve Mercury’s legacy, rather than telling an honest and informative history.

It is worth noting that no film exists in a vacuum, especially one dealing with real-life people and events. Perhaps Bohemian Rhapsody was destined for failure since the removal of director Bryan Singer, whose alleged immaturity and absence from set led to his being replaced with director Dexter Fletcher instead. But plenty of films have dealt with multiple directorial touches and come out successful, so perhaps there is another creative force at play.

Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor were heavily involved in the production of the film, serving as creative and musical consultants. Their involvement makes sense on the surface; who knows Queen better than Queen? But there’s a glaring sense here that May and Taylor are looking to preserve not just Mercury’s legacy, but their own. Mercury is depicted as ignorantly positive and unconcerned, while his bandmates are presented as the voice of reason whenever conflict may arise. Previous perspectives on the band have suggested that disagreements were often rooted in a discomfort with Mercury’s liberal lifestyle, but Bohemian Rhapsody insists that Mercury is just selfish, allowing the film to illustrate the growth of its protagonist, and establish him as a mythic hero.

Further, the PG-13 rating opens the film up to the widest audience. Is Bohemian Rhapsody about confronting the complex themes present in Mercury’s life, or about welcoming in a new generation of Queen-lovers?

But these issues raise a larger question about the responsibilities of filmmakers and storytellers alike. Is it incumbent upon these individuals to unfold completely accurate accounts, or is it acceptable to approach these stories with other goals in mind?

Consider the more recently released Rocketman, entirely directed by Dexter Fletcher. Elton John’s involvement in his own biopic seems to render the film a deeper portrayal of its subject’s life. That’s not to say Rocketman is perfectly honest or accurate; there are ways in which John’s involvement, like May’s and Taylor’s, fractures the film’s pursuit of truth. But the film is more formally innovative than Bohemian Rhapsody, which allows it to confront similar subject matter more aggressively, painting a fuller, more complicated picture.

Both films were likely made, at least in part, to sell merchandise and recruit new listeners, but they also deal with relevant and progressive topics that would not have been touched as recently as a decade ago.  I get the sense that those who knew Freddie Mercury approached his biopic with trepidation, determined to preserve Mercury’s legacy rather than confront it. What I find so bizarre about this approach is that Mercury’s life was all about controversy and envelope-pushing. Why make a film about the man play out so safely?

The story of Elton John overlaps with that of Mercury both thematically and literally (Game of Thrones costars Richard Madden and Aiden Gillen play two very different versions of the same real-life man.) But Rocketman, perhaps because its subject is still alive, is more willing, even eager, to wrestle with the musician’s legacy in hopes of uncovering what has propelled him to legendary status, and why his music endures today. Rocketman asks the questions that Bohemian Rhapsody does not, and while the film may skirt around answering them entirely, it at least feels welcome and in tune with today’s media landscape.

The mythical hero is an ideal. Stories surrounding such an individual can certainly generate important and fascinating discussions. But to render a real-life individual, who would likely tell you firsthand that he is far from perfect, far from mythical, as such only cheapens their story. In Bohemian Rhapsody, Mercury is a man who nearly appears out of thin air to become the frontman for what will one day become Queen. In Rocketman, Elton John is Reginald Dwight, a young boy sharing a hug with his older self, lost in a circle of addicts at a rehab facility, reckoning with his own legacy, his own words, his own actions. Neither film is perfect; they both follow a basic formula that films like Walk Hard have hilariously highlighted and ridiculed. Still, at a time when representation in cinema has never been more heavily scrutinized, particularly in regards to the LGBTQIA+ communities, these films instantly took on huge responsibilities by aiming to tell the respective tales of two of the most famous gay men of the past century. In Bohemian Rhapsody, homosexuality is something the hero must come to terms with and control if they are to succeed. In Rocketman, however, the hero embraces their sexuality. It is the job of those around Elton John to accept him, not the other way around.