Rocketman
Ten Second Review: A surprisingly interesting film that leans a little more into being a musical than you might expect. While certainly as little self absorbed at times, it is at times a fairly raw look at some of John’s lower points.
It feels as though we might be seeing a lot music biopics in the coming years. More and more audiences (not to mention critics) are making it loud and clear that reboots and sequels are not what they want. Those same audiences are also not turning up to films that aren’t sequels or reboots and who could blame them. Ticket prices are expensive and so many original films turn out to be duds. At least with a sequel or reboot you kind of know where you’ll stand and that your fav characters will be there. Musical biopics manage to solve this issue; people can see an “original” film but with a familiar feature or figure that they already enjoy. I will say that the term “biopic” might be a touch restrictive but while “film featuring the music of an artist as a selling point” isn’t very catchy I do intend that that kind of film is included in this prediction.
So, we had Bohemian Rhapsody and that was…fine. To be honest, it did very well with its audience and what critics say really doesn’t affect its bottom line so, I guess you’d have to say it did well. It’s biggest criticisms were the lack lustre pacing, the presenting of the story as fact (when it really twists and turns the truth) and that it was really carried by the central performance by Rami Malek. It is impossible to critique Rocketman without at least thinking a little about Bohemian Rhapsody, so did it correct some of these mistakes?
The film follows Reginald Dwight on his journey to becoming Elton John. Starting from his childhood and progressing through his teen years and onto his recording career, the film looks at what you might describe as the first half of Elton’s Career. It stops short of the 90s so we never see him doing music for the Lion King or anything like that. We see his meteoric rise to fame and his battle with addictions, and to be quite honest it makes for a compelling story.
By it’s nature, namely a biopic where the subject is a producer, it inevitably has a points that are self absorbed and serve to highlight how John may want to be viewed (especially by an audience who didn’t grow up with him). As this is to be expected the actual film ends up being quite interesting. Critics who suggested that we would never get a sincere picture of his drug addiction and lifestyle were treated to a film that actually chose to focus on it, and its here that it begins to fight against the criticism that Bo Rhap got.
The pacing is dealt with by the film taking a chaptered approach to John’s story. It is him telling us his life story era by era. This is obviously where the self absorbed nature of the film comes through strongest but to be perfectly honest, a biopic about Elton John that isn’t Elton John telling you about the life and times of Elton John really wouldn’t be on form. This organisation of the plot actually means you forgive any projected pacing issue but also allows them to move the story on as and when they see fit.
What this narrative style also does is combat the issue of the “truth” in a biopic. Because we understand that our narrator is compromised, and in some sense unreliable, we understand that the film is not to be taken as literal or wholly biographical. When this is combined with dream sequences and a tilt towards being an actual musical, as opposed to a film about the music like Bo Rhap, you become left with a film that is more musical fantasy than just biopic. John himself has said that he wanted to use the film to highlight what he was feeling at the time as opposed to a detailed retelling of his life.
I would be remised if I didn’t talk about the acting. Near enough every character was played incredibly well. The cast as ensemble did not play second fiddle to what is an undeniably brilliant Elton from Taron Egerton. Richard Madden was incredible as was Jamie Bell and Bryce Dallas Howard. Also, a small mention to Tom Bennett who played his part delightfully! It really felt like a team effort from an incredibly talented cast.
While it did combat a lot of the criticism that it was lined up for, the film isn’t all good. A seemingly small thing that I would like to mention is the costuming. I will say that a lot of the costumes looked a little fresh throughout the film but it’s when they show comparisons during the credits that this is really emphasised. The devil is in the details and sadly it must be said that the details in the costuming were just done so much better in real life compared to the film. This may only bother a minority of viewers but I personally found it quite annoying.
I will also say that while the writing is on the whole quite good, there is some sections where it doesn’t flow very well and feels quite jarring. Along with some moments where a little self restraint on the part of the filmmakers might have made for more believable emotion and a questionable cameo (of an actor I like but had no place here), the film is mainly marred by occasionally saying yes to things that could have been revised.
The film is fun and when viewed as a “musical fantasy” is certainly a fun and interesting film. Its highs are pretty high and it’s lows are more distracting than hugely detrimental to the overall experience. I hope the inevitable onslaught of music films take some notes from this over Bohemian Rhapsody .
