Entertaining, but.

Rating: Null/10 (8 November 2018)

I watched Bohemian Rhapsody yesterday and although it was very entertaining, I couldn't help but feel somewhat uncomfortable by some of the liberties the filmmakers took with the real story. But let's start with the positives.
The film brings back to the forefront one of the most legendary bands of all time, including a few of the most talented musicians to have existed. Their music, although not always well-received at the time, is pure magic. I thought Rami Malek did an excellent job conveying Freddie's onstage persona and following the script while at least trying to add some emotional and character complexity when the text was not helpful.
The soundtrack is obviously incredible, but I can't imagine they could do anything to mess that up given that it's purely Queen. I also feel that they captured the feeling of the 70s and 80s quite well and the aerial shot of Wembley Stadium that goes all the way to a close-up of Freddie was stellar.
However, the film takes a few liberties that I didn't feel were warranted. Admittedly, I don't expect a film biopic to be 100% faithful to the real story both because that usually wouldn't work as a feature film due to time restraints and because it's rather uncommon that a life follows a traditional three-act story arc. But my concern is that they created the drama with the friction between the band out of thin air, when Freddie's life - which the filmmakers chose to focus on - had enough complexity anyway. I feel like they stayed away from capturing the true brilliance of Freddie, instead turning him into a caricature of a diva who's always late for recording sessions and who is so unprofessional that he drives away all the people that are close to him. Also, apparently Freddie was gay - if only he knew at the time. Freddie's sexuality as described by those closest to him was much more fluid. And on top of that, having Mary, one of his closest people during his life, not only questioning but essentially telling him that he is gay when he had come out as bisexual, is perpetrating stereotypes regarding bisexual people just being confused homosexuals, besides being factually inaccurate.
Moreover, vilifying Paul Prenter, another victim of the AIDS epidemic and hence certain not to complain about it, just felt wrong. Prenter's actions were at times indeed questionable, to say the least, such as outing Freddie in a tabloid, but he never got a manager fired or keep Live Aid a secret from Freddie.
And that's what the problem of the film was for me. The depiction of Freddie's life, between the alleged break-up of Queen - which never actually happened - all members pursued some solo ventures and some of them before Freddie - up until Freddie receiving an AIDS diagnosis, was what I would expect from a traditional drama of a fictional band. It feels that we were getting a sugar-coated, Hollywood-formulated version of Freddie's sexuality with a healthy dose of a diva attitude and unfounded susceptibility that would be more easily palatable by the average viewer. I believe that's why this film is popular with the masses. It was made by people who prioritised profit over accurately portraying Freddie, for people who wanted to find out more about him as long as it's not too gay. And this is exactly where the irony lies. Even though it's not evident in the film, most fans actually ignored his sexuality and they were happy to admire his flamboyant persona while at the same time rejecting and stereotyping LGBT communities. Almost 30 years after his death, we still fail to acknowledge his real sexuality and are happy to enjoy a movie that shields us from it by selectively ignoring parts of it.
Having said that, I can still justify some of the liberties and inaccuracies of the film. Even though Freddie had never actually introduced Jim Hutton to his parents as his boyfriend and the character of Ray Foster was made up to represent the pressures from the record companies, it did kind of make sense to include these for the purpose of the film and at the very least they didn't alter his legacy.
Despite all of this misplaced drama, the film was indeed very entertaining and the acting was pretty good in general. People who love the music of Queen will enjoy this film and it's also a good starting point for someone who was not familiar with Queen to be introduced and hopefully to delve into their music, career and brilliance after watching it in order to begin to grasp the ambition, mastery and complexity of Freddie Mercury and of Queen.