Toes the Line Between Feel-Good Entertainment and Gritty Biopic

Rating: 8/10 (30 October 2018)

The movie starts, as all good movies do, at the beginning. Freddie, known then as Farouk, is a baggage handler at an airport, casually writes lyrics at the bus stop, and goes out to gigs every night. One night he encounters a band called Smile and approaches them about filling in for their recently-absent lead singer. What follows is a management deal, recording studios, and world tours, until Freddie gets too big for his boots, is manipulated by one of his managers, and descends into drugs, parties, and breaking up the band to pursue a solo career. Then the film culminates in his AIDS diagnosis and the band coming back together for LiveAid.
One thing that stands out as a bit shaky in the film's storytelling is how insanely rushed the beginning is. Freddie joins the band, the bassist appears out of nowhere, they perform their first gig, and then they sell their van to fuel a recording session, they get noticed, picked up by a management company, and suddenly hit it big overnight. Is that how it really happened? I don't know, but I doubt it. The film paints their career trajectory as amateurs suddenly becoming world-famous professionals, and once there there doesn't feel like there's much growth in them or the bands trajectory, they plateau before descending equally as abruptly. The movie isn't a particularly short movie, so I understand there were time constraints, but it almost felt like they focussed too much on Freddie's fall from grace, elongating the second act, and not enough on his (and their) initial rise or his comeback.
That said, ending the movie with the LiveAid concert, cutting out the last six years of Freddie's life, didn't feel like a particularly bad choice. As much as it would have been nice to see a little more of what happened after the comeback and diagnosis, it ultimately meant the movie ended on a high note, with the best scene in the whole movie, filled with inspiration and an infectious crowd. I had to remind myself I was in a quiet cinema and not actually there in the crowd at Wembley, the urge to clap and cheer was so great.
As for the nitty gritty, the character work is really well done. Freddie Mercury of course takes centre stage, and we feel we get a good insight into his character. He's a somewhat awkward outcast, who endures a life of self-discovery, and is ostracised and misunderstood because of it. But he's not painted as an angel either. There are a number of scenes where he's a complete dick to those around him, he's clingy to his ex Mary, and he often comes across as completely full of himself, which the film makes a point to justify by making him right almost all the time when it comes to the band. Rami Malek does a really good job here as well. While I think Sacha Baron Cohen was probably a better fit visually (Malek is too short), Malek definitely has the dramatic chops to bring Freddie's private side - as well as his more flamboyant side - to life.
The rest of Queen are sidelined a little, but they still get enough screen time to still be a prominent enough presence, particularly in the first and third acts. Gwilym Lee is about as perfect casting as you can get for Brian May. He looks like a young Brian May, and has the guys mannerisms and way of talking down to a tee. Ben Hardy is pretty good as Roger Taylor as well, and gets plenty of chances throughout the movie to show multiple sides of Roger, despite never seeming to age over the course of the movie's fifteen year timeline. And then there's Joseph Mazello (the little kid in Jurassic Park) as John Deacon, who I'm not even remotely familiar with, but he looks the part, and can at least play Bass pretty well, so that's a plus in my book. Aiden Gillen is serviceable in his small role as Queen's manager, Tom Hollander is great as their Lawyer, and Mike Myers makes an (as always) unrecognisable cameo as a Record Producer who doubts Queen's potential early on.
The big climax is the LiveAid concert, and it is by far the best sequence of the whole movie. They filmed a recreation of the entire set, but of course time constraints meant it had to be cut down a bit. The set is vast, recreating the stage, the backstage, and the front of the crowd as well. While I felt it a little odd to see the majority of their iconic set recreated and mimed by look-a-like actors, it was a really great opportunity to add in some creativity in camera shots, as well as give us the closest we'll ever get to the performance in high definition, show some of the reactions beyond the stadium, and use it to tie the whole movie together.
In all Bohemian Rhapsody is a good little movie. It manages to toe a careful balance between feelgood entertainment, and portraying the darker sides of Freddie's story. His drug use, his vagrant parties of excess, his sexuality, his manipulation by the hands of Paul Prenter, and his diagnosis framed by the rise of the illness are all touched upon just enough without bringing down the mood too much. I'm also amazed at how much Queen I actually knew without ever really clocking it was Queen. If nothing else, that's the mark of an iconic band; when their music is so intrinsically woven into modern culture thirty years later. I give Bohemian Rhapsody a really good 8/10.