An untruthful, lazy and superficial biopic.

Rating: 5/10 (4 December 2018)

Bohemian Rhapsody is a huge pastiche, solved by relying on generalizations, schematizations and stereotypes. The central point of the film is that of a sense of belonging.
Freddie Mercury's life in Bohemian Rhapsody is marked by the desire to belong to something or someone, the desire to make peace with a sexual identity that deprived him of the affections as he wished them and that of reconciling with a family that didn't approve him. The band represents the good environment from which Fred decides to detach himself, pursuing more sinister ( because that's how they're portrayed in the film ) companies, being attracted by bad acquaintances. Vague homophic vibes. In the film all the possible faults imaginable, all the worst of the worst is focused on a character, Paul Prenter, lover and manager of Freddie. The reliability of the truthfulness of the events is doomed by the very first scenes of the picture, where a young student of Asian descent has just met a band whose leader decided to leave, and is suddenly taken on board for an adventure. In, say, 5 minutes of screen time. Oh, and John Deacon's audition for the band never took place, you just have to assume. Pretty rude. From this moment on the movie is a mish mash of lies which serve the big screen.
Each actor seems to have said their jokes without the others present, so much so that the conversations are unrelated and distant. Malek's impressive performance can do very little to save the film. There are premonitions of events that we know will occur, moments of great revelations in the obvious rain and there is also the scene where someone tells Queen that their most successful song ( which also gives the title to the film) will not please anyone. In a long chain of accounts, it seems that the only salvation and the only balance in the life of the singer were his workmates and Mary Austin.
The only positive side of the film is the story of the relationship between the band and the public. The concerts around the world, the performance at Live Aid, the thrilling crowds, Bohemian Rhapsody manages to evoke the power of music to unite, convey and bring together different people. The only decent scene is the last one, featuring a full lenght rendition of the legendary Live Aid perfomance. Still a technical exercise, but at least the only honest and not over the top moment of the film.
Because the rest of this biopic just seems to distribute blame and virtue, to sentence who is to blame and who to exalt for the genius and the death of Freddie Mercury.
For sure, the genius of Mercury deserved something deeper and more articulate, and so did we.