High Flying Bird

Rating: 5/10 (13 July 2019)

Elton John the recording artist played a big part in my teenage soundtrack years, encompassing his acknowledged classic period from 1971-1976 so the music from this fantasy bio-pic certainly hits the spot with me. I've also seen him in concert more than once and can testify that he's a dynamite live performer. This film acknowledges both of these things but also seeks to portray Elton the human being, the repressed young gay man, born of difficult parents who discovers he has an innate talent for playing the piano and writing melodies for songs. Once he hooks up with his "brown dirt cowboy" lyricist Bernie Taupin and after the two of them struggle for a few years as hack songwriters at the beck and call of old-fashioned impresario Dick James, Elton's alter ego, the flamboyant Captain Fantastic showman duly lands and makes him the biggest act in America covering those golden years.
That success however came at a price as the lonely superstar, still struggling to come to terms with his sexuality and mind-blowing success, duly heads for the overload and binges out on drink, drugs and success. The film ends with the at last reformed John belting out his survival song "I'm Still Standing" and exorcising most of his demons although if you've ever seen the subsequent infamous "fly-on-the-wall" TV special "Tantrums and Tiaras" he's obviously still a spendthrift and subject to mood swings.
No saint is our Elton then but it is possible to feel understanding and even sympathy for the poor little mega-rich boy portrayed here. Director Dexter Fletcher is undoubtedly on John's side as evidenced by the timespan selected here, but still the film and its portrayal of superstar excess seemed a bit shallow and obvious to me.
I liked the over-the-top introduction to the movie as Elton in full regalia crashes an A.A. meeting, at which his confessions and recollections director Fletcher conveniently uses to tell his rise and fall. Never mind that the time-line is frequently skewered and liberties are taken with the detail, the film is principally out to showcase John's extensive musical library and certainly does this although with sometimes mixed results.
Taron Egerton doesn't really look or sound a lot like Elton but he wholeheartedly throws himself into the part and just about carries it off. Richard Madden gets a fairly meaty part as John Reid, Elton's cold, controlling manager and for a time, lover, Jamie Bell is okay as Bernie Taupin, but none of his great band get named in the movie and neither is any credit given to the producer of all his early records, Gus Dudgeon or his orchestrator Paul Buckmaster, which I thought somewhat remiss.
Fletcher directs the musical numbers with some flair, occasionally adapting the song lyrics to fit the screenplay, but is less certain in depicting the dramatic episodes in the singer's life, which too often flirt with cliche.
The film is certainly flash, brash and loud and Elton would probably admit that these adjectives accurately described him at the height of his success but trying to encompass so much into a mere two hour film, just too many short-cuts are taken with a different song to fit in every ten minutes or so, the characterisations, particularly Elton's, rarely run deep.
Still, the film was a good reminder of his glory days and just how high-quality his music was at that time but unfortunately I got the sense that the Elton John here lived up more to his tabloid image than his real self.