The Elton (Soap) Opera

Rating: 9/10 (2 June 2019)

As this newest rock-music biopic commenced, I was confused and more than a bit worried. Elton John checks himself into rehab wearing a Mephistopheles costume. Using the protocol of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, he presents himself and a laundry list of addictions, then breaks into "The Bitch is Back" while seeing himself across the room at age five: "I was justified when I was five..."
What audacious license. Bernie Taupin wrote that lyric, so why does Elton assume he's the fellow in the song?
Little by little, you get it: it's not license, because the songs are enough Elton's for him to recreate them any way he wants. He's retelling his life. Let him even cry it out (it's rehab, after all), although those songs, sad ones included, always uplifted in some way.
Serving as an executive producer for this film, the Elton of today weepily retells his life, cramming songs into contexts never intended. So, the man born 72 years ago Reginald Kenneth Dwight now known as Sir Elton Hercules John compiles familiar tunes into opera, with plenty of soap opera thrown in too.
What's all the crying about? Elton John has one of the most successful music careers ever. Unlike other famous biopics about rock musicians (The Buddy Holly Story, La Bamba, or last year's Bohemian Rhapsody), there is no tragic ending. He dodged airplane crashes, AIDS, drug overdoses, and even gunfire, unlike at least two of his close friends John Lennon and Gianni Versace.
What a bitter prophesy his instrumental song "Funeral for a Friend" turned out to be. The untimely death of another close friend he famously performed at the funeral for, Lady Di, suggested at the time his own life might be a "Candle in the Wind" with tragedy just around the corner.
But Elton John survives long enough to at least sort out his notorious temper tantrums and to confront demons that drove him, as the Mephistopheles costume suggests. Rocketman is not self-pity, it's the rock star finally getting it. Retelling his life is his valuable lesson, and he's finally sorry about mistakes and hurting certain people. Many times, ranting rock star even has the carpet pulled out from under him by people who have always genuinely loved him.
But like opera, the events and characters are make-believe and distorted, even if borrowed from history. Elton's original publisher, Dick James (given over-the-top vulgarity by Stephen Graham) was supposedly not nearly the cigar-chomping imbecile portrayed in the story, but does aptly symbolize the ongoing ugliness of the recording industry. Elton's original producer, Ray Williams (played perceptively by Charlie Rowe), gets off the best zinger in the film when he tells the more mammon-guided John Reid (given cinematic sizzle as the film's ultimate villain by Richard Maddon) that his expensive artwork is hanging upside down.
But the real hero of the tale blossoms in Bryce Dallas Howard's performance as Reggie's flighty mum, who doesn't break one ounce of poise in telling off her brat son. The lingering enigma of Reggie's otherwise stone-faced but pleasant father (with Steven Mackintosh superbly balancing this paradox) begs a pressing question: mum claimed she knew early on that Reggie was gay, but did dad also know, and was that the source of his emotionally abandoning his son and family?
The film never allows Taron Egerton as Elton to answer these and other questions, which might have brought down the house, but we do get resolution in the end with photos of the real Elton of today showing off his new domestic life. Just the same, Egerton understands how his petty tantrums should keep the story going and unconventionally masters his lead part this way. Meanwhile, Jamie Bell musters his steady part as the cool friend and professional partner, Bernie, extremely likeable, even when going against the whims of anti-hero Elton.
Otherwise flamboyant actor turned director, Dexter Fletcher, underplays the material as more a down-to-earth film, as does Lee Hall's serviceable screenplay. One can search the credits for a choreographer and find the name Adam Murray (under "Other Crew"), but something should be mentioned about the often nerve-wracking way the story breaks back and forth between fantasy and reality parodying conventional musical. Just the same, we get to like the quirky storytelling process, which resolves itself in the end as something tongue-in-cheek, but also as something with the same ironic glitter of the era.
Then we wonder if all our efforts in accepting the way this story was told were worth it. After all the story could have been told differently, although we often catch ourselves liking it the way it is.
The main thing is that Elton may have done a lot of rightly regrettable things in his life, but what prevails is that he didn't burn out his fuse up there alone. Bravo then to this opera and anything else this still living rock star has to offer.