Campy, heavy-handed mess from the get-go

Rating: 4/10 (2 June 2019)

This highly-touted film about Elton John that blends the biopic and musical genres together has one big selling point: Taron Egerton's go-for-broke performance as the deeply troubled musical genius. Regrettably, the film as a whole is self-indulgent and cliche-ridden to the hilt and goes down as a misfire.
Problematic right out of the gate, the film has to overcome a befuddling start which takes place from the tawdry vantage point of a psychiatric support group and frames the film's narrative from that trivializing angle from there on out. Perhaps a film of better nuance could have pulled this off but here we have camp, mawkishness and exploitation all rolled into one. The end result is a film whose tone is dumbfounding, annoying and at times embarrassing to endure. The musical numbers in this film are mostly perplexing and very rarely effective in conveying this life story.
I am not one to criticize a biopic because I realize it's a genre that is beholden to the life it is portraying. While I don't question the film's accuracy in portraying how awful Elton John's personal demons were, a film with more discipline almost definitely could have done better. A campy film, one that keeps poking you in the eye with how bad it is, will not tell anyone's story all that well, let alone a legend like Elton John.
Bearing in mind that Egerton's performance has to be seen to be believed, I nevertheless decline to recommend this.