Bohemian Rhapsody Entertains and Illuminates
After a decade of crew changes, cast switch-a-roos, concerning headlines, and vague rumblings that this film had simply fizzled out of existence… The Queen biopic is finally coming our way on November 2nd.
I was lucky enough to snag a pass to an early screening of Bohemian Rhapsody this week — big thanks to 20th Century Fox for hosting, and to The Georgia Voice for offering its resident Queen fans a chance to enjoy.
This movie is a Big Deal™ for many reasons. Music fans have been hankering for a biopic that doesn’t follow the same damn formula as all of the others. It’s also long, long overdue that the world has a cinematic tribute to one of our most beloved entertainers. The wait has been rough, but it’s hard to take issue with the surviving band members wanting this picture to be nothing short of the truth.
Additionally, Bohemian Rhapsody is an essential pop cultural moment for the queer community. Not only are we getting a mainstream depiction of one of the most flamboyant, boundary-breaking bands in history, but we’re also watching the rest of the world take a second look at Freddie in an era where his queerness is much more lauded as self-actualization instead of just trendy androgyny or part of the New York club scene of the 80s.
The question I went into this screening with was this: Will this film venture far enough beyond the arena anthems and the 74,000-person crowds to deliver a gritty, real account of one of the most well-known bisexual men in history?
That depends on how you define “enough,” doesn’t it? The honest answer is that Bohemian Rhapsody is a Freddie biopic that focuses on his life as an entertainer, and everything else is secondary.
I don’t mind that approach. Most queer people I know (myself included) believe something similar about themselves: Their sexuality is a single part of a much greater sum; there are so many other things to be remembered for instead of or in addition to who you love. That’s not to say it ignores his sexuality altogether — quite the opposite. More on that later.
Scope-wise, this film gives us almost the full tale of Queen’s life as a band while Freddie was still with us. Despite having a slew of fascinating, nonlinear stories to work with, the structure of the movie is indeed as formulaic as can be. Some of the narrative choices are decisions many historical movies tend to make: Real life is messy, and the story is much smoother if you consolidate people, places, and things into simpler forms — even if it means twisting history a little bit.
Speaking of which, some creative liberties were taken with the supporting cast. That’s hard to say in a review, especially about a film that was partially created by the people who were there for this slice of history… but the characterization of some of the non-Queen members of the story got a little too cartoonish here and there. That‘s not to say those actors didn’t give great portrayals. I don’t think there was a single bad performance in the film.
This being a Queen-focused biopic, the casting of the entire band is as close to flawless as anyone can imagine. Joseph Mazzello as a quiet, snarky John Deacon on bass was a wonderful choice; it would’ve been easy to have his character hang back or toss in some one-liners, particularly since the real Deacon is retired and wasn’t on set to participate in the filmmaking process.
As Roger Taylor on drums is Ben Hardy, who has the exact baby-faced, Puck-ish quality that made the real Taylor such a quintessential rock star personality. Look closely at Gwilym Lee as Brian May — you may need to reassure yourself that you’re not actually watching the ghost of a young May on screen. The guy is a dead ringer for Queen’s guitarist, down to the tone of his voice and the muscle-twitches in his expressions.
Rami Malek, though, is the real magician here. He disappeared so thoroughly into Freddie’s every flourish that I forgot a few times during the screening that I wasn’t simply watching restored Queen footage from the 80s.
It’s difficult to pick a highlight of his performance, because its power comes down to energy. There’s no way an actor can succeed at a part this vivid unless he just goes for it — and Malek’s vibrations had everyone in my theater on his side immediately. Malek trained himself so well that even the most innocuous glance over his shoulder is thick with curiosity and shrewdness and wit and everything else Freddie was.
In particular, it’s his turn as Freddie during the recreation of Live Aid that made me lose my composure. It’s a set-up that demands reaction from viewers, and there was a wide range of them in my theater: shouts, tears, singing, hands in the air, dancing, mad giggles... I’ll skip the details of the hows and whats and WOWs — they’re wonderful and count as spoilers — but know that Rami Malek gave us something astonishing in that sequence. I believe the movie is worth seeing for that stretch alone.
The other live music moments in the film are truly fun, and full of every hue of glitter, spandex, and smoke a Queen fan would expect. It’s obvious the cast has done their homework, because the dynamic between them all on their fictional stages is a perfect match to the real thing.
By the way, if you predicted that the soundtrack would consist of Queen’s most excellent remastered hits, you were about 75% right. There are a few fabulous surprises on the album that differ from the studio versions, including what’s played in the closing credits of the film. Stream it on Spotify here!
One of the biggest questions about this project concerned two whopping topics: Freddie’s sexuality, and his contraction of and death from AIDS. One doesn’t necessarily beget the other, but if you know anything about queer culture in the 80s, you know that the AIDS epidemic happened because people knew so tragically little about this new virus. Between the lack of a treatment, a shameful brush-off from the government, and a 10-year incubation period for the infection, the mid-to-late 80s saw a staggering wave of queer men dying at a rate that wiped out parts of entire communities.
In a poignant reflection of Freddie’s attitude after his diagnosis, the story starts running on pure adrenaline and purpose.
The filmmakers address Freddie’s illness in a way I think he would have approved of. They don’t gloss over how serious the virus was worldwide — news footage and the way characters talk about it tell us exactly what a swift killer AIDS was in the queer community during this time. It doesn’t kill the spirit of the film, though — if anything, it galvanizes it. In a poignant reflection of Freddie’s attitude after his diagnosis, the story starts running on pure adrenaline and purpose.
As for Freddie’s sexuality and related behaviors, the movie makes some choices that I’m on the fence about. They’re not exactly misrepresentative of Freddie’s nature towards sex — there’s a documentary somewhere on YouTube where a friend of his said he’d taken to the New York gay scene like David Attenborough to passing wildlife. They’re just… abrupt.
It’s difficult, though, to depict someone coming to terms with their sexuality on film. It requires time and space and exploration, and if the movie isn’t about that transition, then those resources are limited. Like the people, places, and things that were consolidated for narrative convenience, Freddie’s move into relationships with men is about as smooth as it’s allowed to be in the 135 minutes it had.
On a related note, the weakest part of this movie is the script. Don’t get me wrong, there are brilliant, hilarious, and poignant writing choices here. Some of the dialogue, though, is downright hokey. A few of the band members had lines that were so self-aware and on-the-nose that they took me out of the moment — I’m talking about the kind of sentiments you can only deliver after having had the benefit of seeing what your legacy looks like.
That being said, the best, most beloved parts of Queen’s legacy are all over this movie… and that’s what’s makes it hard for me to nitpick over if they got it “right” or not. The details may not be the truest things, but the spirit they captured most certainly is. Every sensation you love the most about this band is present here, and it’s a hell of thing to experience in theaters.
In fact, there’s a line Rami Malek delivers earlier in the movie that I’ll leave you with. It encapsulates the most remarkable and lovable thing about Queen:
We’re four misfits who don’t belong together, who are playing for other misfits and the outcasts right at the back of the room — who are pretty sure they don’t belong either. We belong to them.
