Bohemian
Rhapsody
Dir: Bryan Singer
2018
***
Like
pretty much everyone else, I was very weary of this Queen/Freddie Mercury
biopic and for many reasons. I’m a fan of both man and band, I’m not sure there
is anyone who can say they don’t like/love at least one Queen song, and recent
music biopics haven’t all been that successful. Making a biopic when so many
people involved are still around and advising can be both a benefit and a
hindrance. I suppose my main concern came after Sacha Baron Cohen left the
project. I could see him giving a convincing performance as Freddie Mercury and
had little reservation regarding his casting. However, when he left the project
citing that the rest of Queen wanted to focus more on what happened after
Mercury died, alarm bells went off. Sure, Queen carried on with Adam Lambert taking
over singing duties but in reality, no one really sees Queen now as anything
other than a novelty band with a west end musical. Sacha Baron Cohen clearly
wanted it to be a full on Mercury biopic, while Brian May and Roger Taylor
wanted it to be about the band. You can’t have one without the other really but
the truth is Freddie Mercury is by far the interesting part of Queen, while the
other three are rather dull. Talented but dull. The end result is clearly a
compromise, which was for the best, but even with May and Taylor as
co-writers/producers/advisers they still come across as dull. To be fair
though, everyone is dull compared to Freddie Mercury. This begged the question,
who on earth could take on such a performance? Getting Mercury right was the
first concern, fitting in all of the band’s history into a feature film was the
second. Less important aspects of their history are missed out and many events
and characters are amalgamated to great effect but it was the key moments
that they needed to get right. In this regard they did and didn’t get it right.
The film clearly went through development hell when Sacha Baron Cohen walked
and was replaced with Ben Whishaw with Dexter
Fletcher as the director. Both men walked soon
after citing creative differences and it became clear that May and Taylor had
no idea what they wanted, or at least, what they wanted was not what everyone
else thought was right. I’m not sure Ben Whishaw was the right
actor for the job personally, so I’m glad they found Rami Malek when they did. His performance was tremendous and
without it I’m not sure the film would have been the success it was. The film
itself covers many important moments in Queen’s history but a lot of it is
untrue and so much of it is omitted due to the time constraints. This made me
think that this could, and perhaps should have been a televisual mini-series.
After all of the film’s development problems, it was amazing that it was
actually finished thanks to Bryan Singer’s
irrational behaviour while filming. The disgraced director would turn up late
and often not at all during the shoot and in the end Dexter
Fletcher was asked back to finish the filming after he had left the project
some years before. I don’t think the direction of the film is very good at all
and it looks like a typical made-for-TV biopic with all the usual clichés
thrown in. However, they get it right where they really need to. The Live Aid
scene is the big one and the one everyone was talking about. It is incredible
and like watching the real thing, it’s just a shame the rest of the film is a
million miles away from it. I would argue that it would be only half a film
without Rami Malek’s fantastic performance. That said, there are some brilliant
tidbits thrown in that I loved. These range from the amalgamation of
events and people, nods to certain actors/characters and big moments in Queen’s
history that they didn’t have time to explore. I loved how Freddie is coxed
into a men’s room by Adam Lambert playing a
truck driver. I loved Mike Myers’ character Ray Foster (a fictional
character loosely based on EMI chief Roy Featherstone) who complains that Bohemian Rhapsody isn't music that
teenagers can bang their heads to. This is clearly a nod to Wayne's
World where Wayne (portrayed by Myers) and his
friends are headbanging to Bohemian Rhapsody in the car. Myers really had to
push for the use of Bohemian Rhapsody in the film when the producers felt it
wouldn't be appropriate. Myers stood his ground, eventually threatening to quit
the movie. Myers got his way in the end though, and when the movie became a
huge hit, and Bohemian Rhapsody reentered the charts, peaking at at #2 in the
United States. The movie was also credited for introducing Queen to a new
audience. Myers was offered the part as a way of thanks from the band. I liked
the acknowledgment of Queen’s work on the Highlander soundtrack by showing
Mercury reflected in a pair of sunglasses and I liked the amalgamated
appearances of so many rumoured occurrences that happened at several of Mercury’s
infamous parties. If you are a Queen nerd then the film is something of a
puzzle full of Easter eggs. These Easter eggs almost make up for the
film’s misgivings. I found the factual errors, no matter how minor, to be
typical of music biopics and I do find them tiring. People do want to know how
big band got together, so I’m not sure why this is always changed?For instance, Freddie Mercury had known Staffell
from art college, and had shown an interest in joining Smile before his
departure. Mercury had also lived and worked with Roger Taylor, way before he
joined Smile and he didn’t meet them and best friend Mary Austin on the same
night. Also, John Deacon was not their original bassist, he was the fourth!
Later on in the film Mercury is portrayed as selfish for seeking a solo career
but Taylor had released two solo albums and May had released one before Mercury
had even thought about releasing his first. Queen never split up, so Live Aid
was not a reunion. They released The Works in
early 1984 and then toured worldwide. The last show of the tour was eight weeks
before Live Aid. They also had no reservations about performing in the concert
at two weeks' notice, as depicted in the film. It is another case of false
tension for dramatic effect at the cost of fact and reason. It nearly ruins the
film for me. Mercury wanted to keep his HIV diagnosis private, so I understand
why the film wouldn’t go into it much but you do have to question when the
biopic starts and the fantasy ends. According to 'Freddie Mercury: His Life in His Own Words', compiled and
edited by Greg Brooks and Simon Lipton, he once said
"I have visions of actually having a film made of my life story, one day,
which I would have a key part in. I might not play the lead myself. My dears,
the things I've done in my lifetime... it'll be totally triple X-rated, I'll
tell you!" This almost makes me think we’ve been cheated out of a Sacha Baron Cohen version of the film, the fact that he
wasn’t allowed to make the film the outrageous biopic that he thought it should
be and walked because of it. Many people who knew Freddie didn’t like the film
and many people are written out of history because of it. I all honesty, this
should have been a passionate television mini-series, chronicling how
they really met and where each member was at each chapter of their history.
They could have got at least eight compelling hour-long episodes out of it and
the making of their video to I Want To Break Free could have been an episode in
itself. It would have allowed time for Freddie’s diagnosis to be explored more
tastefully and for the audience to understand the overall progression of
the band – arguably one of the greatest in rock and roll history. It should
have been as compelling, entertaining and as outrageous as Freddie was, but it
wasn’t. I liked it and I thought Rami Malek was excellent, I just think that
after he received death threats from the Egyptian government over his
performance, they might as well have gone all the way and told a 100% authentic
version of the story.
