Bohemian Rhapsody, the long-time-coming and troubled biopic of Freddie Mercury by way of his surviving Queen members, has a view of queerness that is firmly entrenched in 1980, around the time that Al Pacino's latent homosexuality turned him into a murderer in Cruising, and Michael Caine's cross-dressing exacerbated his psychopathy in Dressed to Kill. And Bohemian Rhapsody doesn't even have the camp appeal of those two films, but manages in 2018 to be as instantly dated as either. Rated PG-13, when I suppose it just as easily could have nabbed a PG, it treats Freddie's sexuality as an afterthought and--more insidiously--a burden to his bandmates, family, and wife. It seems him primarily as an amusing eccentric, and a musical genius second.
This is, I suppose, the conundrum of any biopic of an artist. The makers of a film like this have the challenge of telling a story that at once embraces its subject's art and offers us something to complement it. I think of how disappointed I was by Ray and Walk the Line, which spoke to its subjects' musical genius with only the most perfunctory addiction/recovery story to round them out. But then I recall the Stephen Fry-headlining Wilde, which was all about Oscar Wilde's queerness with none of his wit. A good biopic, I think, needs to have both the personal and the mythical in balance, and I struggle to think of one that actually works. Freddie has the art, and I feel like he must have the other part somewhere, and that it's been obscured by people who'd rather not tell it.
What we're left with is the only story rock stars ever seem to want to tell: (1) Defiant iconoclast rises to fame with singular talent; (2) Defiant iconoclast creates masterpiece by being defiant and iconoclastic, and gets even more famous; (3) Same rock star is tarnished by excess--whether drugs, alcohol, or ego--and ruins relationships because of it; (4) Rock star redeems himself in epic fashion. It's the story that should now be retired post-Walk Hard, but here it is again. We even have Freddie's stereotypical wet-blanket of a working-class dad, who would rather he "Do good deeds" or something or other instead of being cool and hip and rocking. (The mom is quiet and demure, as if the filmmakers never agreed on a type for her.)
Freddie (Rami Malek) happens upon the small-time band Smile in a college bar and admires them. He introduces himself to Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy). Their lead singer has just quit. He joins them and they form Queen.
The best part of the film surrounds the writing and recording of the title song. These are the only scenes that project any sort of uniqueness on the band; even though the plot is fairly standard, these scenes portray the band's unconventional recording techniques and fierce advocacy for "Bohemian Rhapsody" and refusal to be formulaic. There's a couple of amusing scenes between the band and a producer played cheekily by Mike Myers, who makes a clunky but heartwarming in-joke about the upcoming Wayne's World revival of the song. This feels like the most honest part of the film, probably because it represents the band's version of the story, and naturally the scenes that feature Freddie as one-of-four rather than one-of-one play better. The scene in which Brian May composes "We Will Rock You" is also a highlight, and it really shouldn't be.
It's when the movie dwells on Freddie's excess that it feels disingenuous. There's the standard plot line about the lead singer who gets too big for the band, and the band who resents his going solo. This does happen, and has been dealt with in some thoughtful ways (see Barbara Kopple's Shut Up and Sing, for example, about the Dixie Chicks and their internal troubles after Natalie Maines went political). But this plot thread exists mainly so that Freddie can try to branch out on his own and humbly come crawling back. "I hired a bunch of guys, I told them exactly what I wanted them to do," he says, "and the problem was: they did it. I need you." Sure you do, Fred.
His bisexuality is played mostly as the source of frustration for his wife, Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), who remains his Girl Friday despite his open dalliances. His longtime boyfriend, Paul Prenter (Allen Leech), is portrayed as an invasive presence on Freddie's marriage and on the band. Freddie's attraction to and affairs with men are portrayed disturbingly chastely, as if the movie is afraid to really touch them. That PG-13 movies can feature untold amounts of violence but balk at male-male relationships is certainly partially to blame for this, but it doesn't absolve the filmmakers; even a PG-13 movie can deal with the perils of queerness in the 1980s more honestly than this. A scene in which Freddie is propositioned by a man in a public bathroom is reminiscent of Colin Firth's coming-out scene in Mamma Mia, which was so obscure and suggestive that I couldn't even be sure he was coming out.
AIDS, of course, exists mainly on the movie's sidelines, as, I suppose, it ought to; a movie about Freddie Mercury's genius should spend only as much time as is absolutely necessary on the disease that robbed us of him. (Plus, I'm not really interested in any salient statement on AIDS from filmmakers who fumble with homosexuality to begin with.) Still, its use of the epidemic is as perfunctory as anything else in the film, and fits right into the formula, right down to the scene in which Freddie coughs up blood into a hankie, a trope that should have been retired long before Oh Hello! on Broadway.
To say that Rami Malek isn't really to blame for the film's badness is not to say he's particularly good in it. Malek is a great actor and does fantastic work on Mr. Robot, but doesn't overcome the screenplay or his dental insert. He has a brilliant career ahead of him and though he won the Oscar for this film, he'll be the better the sooner he moves past it.
I know people who've found a lot to enjoy about the film, mainly in its re-creations of live performances, including the Live Aid concert that acts as the film's climax. These are all well-filmed, but there's not much to them that can't be achieved by watching actual footage of Queen performances. The most exhilarating scenes--and there is some exhilaration--already exist, and watching Malek and crew act through them is like listening to a decent cover band.
I don't consider myself an expert on Freddie Mercury's life, but I can't be alone in insisting that there must have been more to him than this. Given that the best scenes lionize the band over him, I have to assume his image is muted by their creative control. There must be both Queen and Freddie Mercury: the legendary band and the unique frontman. This is a movie, alas, about a gravedigger who meets a prince.
* 1/2 out of ****
