Review - Rocketman
Pre-review plead, please go see Booksmart this week. I reviewed it a couple of weeks ago (review here https://thequitenerdyblog.blogspot.com/2019/05/review-booksmart.html) and it is just the most wonderful film. Funny, fresh feeling and very, very honest, it's far and away the best thing I've seen so far this year and being a tiny indie film, it needs its supporters. So please, don't go Aladdin or The Secret Life of Pets 2 (Rocketman is a fine alternative, as you will read) this week, go see Booksmart. Now onto the review.
Rocketman is a weird synthesis between musical and biopic about the life of one of the biggest rockstars of all time, Elton John. It's the story of the highest of highs that he accomplished (financially, culturally and pharmaceutically) until about the eighties (my knowledge of John's career isn't amazing but that seems to be about right), where he is reflecting on his life through a group rehab session. What this framing device allows for is a largely chronological dash through his life, in which songs pop up not necessarily when they were actually performed or written but when they are most thematically appropriate. For example, no Elton did not sing the song "I Want Love" when he was a child but it works with the events of the moment and is therefore appropriate. There's a quote I came across recently from Michael Haneke which I think sums up my feelings on "truth" in cinema, that "Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth". Cinema does not tell the truth because it is an inherently constructed medium but you can tell an emotional truth and in the unconventional telling of an otherwise fairly familiar story, Rocketman does that. Not for the first time in this review, I will gesture to the corpse of Bohemian Rhapsody, a film which aimed for accuracy, meaning that the transgressions and falsehoods become more troubling, as opposed to Rocketman's fantasy allowing for the feeling of truth to be enough. Rocketman is not "true" but because of its falsehoods, it feels it.
Casting wise, there are some surprises in Rocketman but ultimately, none that really let the film down. Front and center is Taron Egerton, previously wonderfully charismatic in both Kingsman films and Eddie the Eagle. Looks wise, there are moments in the film that are genuinely uncanny, where I would have been un-surprised to find out that Egerton's face was mapped onto John's but, as we know from Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody, looks alone do not make a performance. Fortunately, Egerton is bringing his all to all other parts of the performance too. Acting wise, he captures that feeling of the "introverted extrovert" as the film calls him, a lost little boy who still just wants a hug but is propelled to the stratosphere of stardom. Weirdly enough, it reminds me of some of the greatest performances from Booksmart, in which an outward aesthetic is maintained just enough that we can still see the cracks of humanity underneath. Egerton isn't just acting his heart out though, he's also singing it out. Every single song in the film is his voice. This is not some mere lip-sync while someone in the studio plays their Queen Spotify playlist, this is fully committing to the role. All those around are singing and acting their heart out too. Richard Madden is sublimely slimy as John Reid, Stephen Graham is having a blast as Dick James and Bryce Dallas Howard should not work, yet does as Elton's mother. Finally, a special mention should go to Jamie Bell as Bernie Taupin, whose fraternal romance with Elton is the heart of the film. If either of them played a single insincere note, that dynamic and the entire film would collapse but neither do and therefore the film soars.
One of the controversial things about Bohemian Rhapsody was how much of the film was censored. Freddie Mercury did not live a restrained life but according to the film, he dabbled a bit in some drugs and some gay stuff, both of which made him pretty ill in the end and he should really have steered clear of them. This censoring is only annoying because it was done in order to attain a 12a rating (PG13 in America) which allowed it to have a much wider commercial reach (that annoyingly, worked, leading it to gross over $900 million). Rocketman has no such worries. It uses all the bad words it knows, depicts substance abuse in all its highs and lows and puts Elton's homosexuality front and center. As I was watching, I kept making mental notes of where the producers could have cut scenes or lines in order to try and get a release in somewhere like China, but was consistently impressed at how few compromises were made. As impressive as that was the length Rocketman takes its fantasies to. Like I said earlier, film is an inherently untruthful medium and so instead of playing all events by the book, why not enhance them with fantastical elements to heighten the emotional impact? It's why the film fits so solidly into the mould of musical because no, there probably was not a fight that led to a carnival that led back to the pub when Elton performed Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting), but it feels right. It feels cinematic. We're watching a film here, not reality. They're the moments that really elevate Rocketman above the level of well-done biopic, because watching a crowd float during Crocodile Rock is the perfect visual metaphor for the transcendent power of music, specifically the music of Elton John that the film is clearly so enamoured with.
Okay, I'll admit, doing this review was a nice chance to drag Bohemian Rhapsody over the coals again, but that's only because literally everything that really disappointed, bored or actively insulted me in that film is absent from Rocketman. It is a fantastical celebration of the man and the music of Elton Johm, that works because it can make you care more about his discography than you realised you actually do. I am only gutted that it'll make way less money and probably get way fewer awards than Bohemian Rhapsody, so I hope everyone goes to support it (after they see Booksmart of course). That's why I'm giving Rocketman an
Rocketman is a weird synthesis between musical and biopic about the life of one of the biggest rockstars of all time, Elton John. It's the story of the highest of highs that he accomplished (financially, culturally and pharmaceutically) until about the eighties (my knowledge of John's career isn't amazing but that seems to be about right), where he is reflecting on his life through a group rehab session. What this framing device allows for is a largely chronological dash through his life, in which songs pop up not necessarily when they were actually performed or written but when they are most thematically appropriate. For example, no Elton did not sing the song "I Want Love" when he was a child but it works with the events of the moment and is therefore appropriate. There's a quote I came across recently from Michael Haneke which I think sums up my feelings on "truth" in cinema, that "Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth". Cinema does not tell the truth because it is an inherently constructed medium but you can tell an emotional truth and in the unconventional telling of an otherwise fairly familiar story, Rocketman does that. Not for the first time in this review, I will gesture to the corpse of Bohemian Rhapsody, a film which aimed for accuracy, meaning that the transgressions and falsehoods become more troubling, as opposed to Rocketman's fantasy allowing for the feeling of truth to be enough. Rocketman is not "true" but because of its falsehoods, it feels it.
Casting wise, there are some surprises in Rocketman but ultimately, none that really let the film down. Front and center is Taron Egerton, previously wonderfully charismatic in both Kingsman films and Eddie the Eagle. Looks wise, there are moments in the film that are genuinely uncanny, where I would have been un-surprised to find out that Egerton's face was mapped onto John's but, as we know from Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody, looks alone do not make a performance. Fortunately, Egerton is bringing his all to all other parts of the performance too. Acting wise, he captures that feeling of the "introverted extrovert" as the film calls him, a lost little boy who still just wants a hug but is propelled to the stratosphere of stardom. Weirdly enough, it reminds me of some of the greatest performances from Booksmart, in which an outward aesthetic is maintained just enough that we can still see the cracks of humanity underneath. Egerton isn't just acting his heart out though, he's also singing it out. Every single song in the film is his voice. This is not some mere lip-sync while someone in the studio plays their Queen Spotify playlist, this is fully committing to the role. All those around are singing and acting their heart out too. Richard Madden is sublimely slimy as John Reid, Stephen Graham is having a blast as Dick James and Bryce Dallas Howard should not work, yet does as Elton's mother. Finally, a special mention should go to Jamie Bell as Bernie Taupin, whose fraternal romance with Elton is the heart of the film. If either of them played a single insincere note, that dynamic and the entire film would collapse but neither do and therefore the film soars.
One of the controversial things about Bohemian Rhapsody was how much of the film was censored. Freddie Mercury did not live a restrained life but according to the film, he dabbled a bit in some drugs and some gay stuff, both of which made him pretty ill in the end and he should really have steered clear of them. This censoring is only annoying because it was done in order to attain a 12a rating (PG13 in America) which allowed it to have a much wider commercial reach (that annoyingly, worked, leading it to gross over $900 million). Rocketman has no such worries. It uses all the bad words it knows, depicts substance abuse in all its highs and lows and puts Elton's homosexuality front and center. As I was watching, I kept making mental notes of where the producers could have cut scenes or lines in order to try and get a release in somewhere like China, but was consistently impressed at how few compromises were made. As impressive as that was the length Rocketman takes its fantasies to. Like I said earlier, film is an inherently untruthful medium and so instead of playing all events by the book, why not enhance them with fantastical elements to heighten the emotional impact? It's why the film fits so solidly into the mould of musical because no, there probably was not a fight that led to a carnival that led back to the pub when Elton performed Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting), but it feels right. It feels cinematic. We're watching a film here, not reality. They're the moments that really elevate Rocketman above the level of well-done biopic, because watching a crowd float during Crocodile Rock is the perfect visual metaphor for the transcendent power of music, specifically the music of Elton John that the film is clearly so enamoured with.
Okay, I'll admit, doing this review was a nice chance to drag Bohemian Rhapsody over the coals again, but that's only because literally everything that really disappointed, bored or actively insulted me in that film is absent from Rocketman. It is a fantastical celebration of the man and the music of Elton Johm, that works because it can make you care more about his discography than you realised you actually do. I am only gutted that it'll make way less money and probably get way fewer awards than Bohemian Rhapsody, so I hope everyone goes to support it (after they see Booksmart of course). That's why I'm giving Rocketman an
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