A Letdown for Queen Fans

Rating: 2/10 (21 February 2019)

I have seen a number of negative reviews of "Bohemian Rhapsody" that primarily take issue with its factual inaccuracies. These reviews are unlikely to aid the average viewer--who goes to the movies to be entertained--in deciding whether to see this film or in considering its merits after having watched it. The carelessness shown by "Bohemian Rhapsody"'s disregard for facts may serve, however, to underscore the film's deep flaws, chief among which (ironically) is its superficiality. At the center of this film is Freddie Mercury, played by Rami Malek with a sheen of flamboyant glamor constantly being threatened by an aching loneliness that, one gets the feeling, the film often wishes would just go away. In this sense, the filmic Mercury is not human so much as he is a vessel of musical talent that happens to have, accumulated around it, details that for a fully-realized character would represent more than narrative inconveniences. Malek, to his credit, persists in conveying that loneliness, Mercury's starvation for real connection and understanding. The film's creators also appear to understand the character's desperate need for love (the film opens with "Somebody to Love," after all). And the film recognizes, at least in theory, that love can occur in guises romantic, familial, and collegial, and that fanatical love, often depicted as hollow and unsatisfying, can sustain a person as lonely as Malek's Mercury. But rather than depict Mercury's journey through the push and pull of relationships with people pursuing their own needs, the filmmakers settle for surrounding him with emotional wallpaper (see, e.g., his bandmates, essentially playing the role of nagging but devoted spouse) incapable of challenging or fulfilling him. Moreover, any chance Malek has of developing a well-rounded character is thwarted by the film's haste to get through its quiet moments; one wonders if the messy production history required these scenes get short shrift in favor of the money-shot concert segments. Those concert segments, by the way, are (like the rest of the film) neutered by choppiness and an unnatural sleekness--in other words, they feel too much like the BBC TV performance early in the film that the band laments it will have to lip-sync and mime through. But that's show biz, right? I am willing to forgive the artificiality of the concert scenes (they are, after all, lip-synced and mimed) because the music is great, but I cannot help but wish they held some of the raw emotionality of the concert scenes, shot with a lingering, trembling camera, in this year's "A Star Is Born." (I recognize that much of Queen's music consists of stadium-rock stompers that do not lend themselves to emotional revelation. But the film doesn't even attempt to convey anything more than, "Look, it's Queen!" with most of the musical performances. Surely, a more definite statement about Mercury's off-stage loneliness could have been made by contrast.) I could go on to complain of the dialogue, through which the film manifests its fear of emotional depth, or the cliché-ridden imagery (trucker-hat beard guy slo-mo walks into MEN room; Mercury, on payphone with wife, looks on, licks lips), but I'm starting to feel like a grouch. I will close with a final opinion, which requires no intellectualizing or arguing: "Bohemian Rhapsody" is boring. I went in optimistic, a lover of Queen's music. I should have been easy to please. But the film is a struggle to get through. It should feel like an ecstatic, powerful, sweaty, riotous, gay concert--the kind of place where a person could fall in love with a person, with a band--but instead is tour footage, sanitized and stitched together from only the most precious, perfect moments, where all of the mistakes, all of the personality, are erased.