The Show Must Go On

Rating: 10/10 (3 November 2018)

I saw Bohemian Rhapsody on the 24th October 2018 in the new Light Cinema in Addlestone. It was a Queen, or more accurately, Freddie biopic. Ignore some of the early reviews by the critics, they always had it in for the band, probably because they weren't invited to their famous parties. The casting was perfect: Rami Malek and Gwilym Lee were superb as Freddie and Brian May respectively. The claim that the film did not adequately show Freddie's gay side was nonsense; it was clear that Freddie was gay from the film but he only discovered this himself relatively late in his life, Mary Austin was the love of his life and his will is evidence of this but his sexual attraction was to men. Moreover, the film was about Queen and Freddie's role as its flamboyant frontman. When Freddie was alive, he did not want to be defined as a victim of aids and revealed he had the disease at the end of his life. The scene when he told the band was quite emotional. The film also depicted his Indian / Persian origins and the racism he had to put up with in the earlier part of his life. When he became a star he was roundly accepted as British. Freddie was loved for his sense of humour and this was represented in the film. The final scene was the Live Aid performance which showed Freddie and Queen in all their glory and why they were the best live band on the planet. The film was excellent. Couldn't have been better, in fact.