C+Directed by Dexter Fletcher Starring Taron Egerton Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Dexter Fletcher’s previous work as a director, subbing in at the last-minute for unreliable alleged rapist Bryan Singer on Bohemian Rhapsody, was insufficient to save that Queen biopic from arriving into theaters as a hacky mess and potentially the worst Best Picture nominee in decades, but Fletcher’s navigation of a story heavily influenced by its musician subjects was satisfactory enough to get him a job in the exact same subgenre. Like the surviving members of Queen, Elton John has long shopped a film about his early life and career, and the filmgoing market is clearly primed for songbook musicals, regardless of quality. With the parody Walk Hard far in the background as a guidebook of what not do to and Bohemian Rhapsody as a recent example of how terrible a film can be if every canard and trope is indulged, Fletcher’s Rocketman doesn’t reinvent a well-work wheel but it finds considerable stylistic flourishes to at least make the ride smoother.
A viewer would be forgiven for thinking another Bohemian Rhapsody-style slog was underway based on Rocketman’s in media res opening, wherein Elton John (Taron Egerton) strides into an AA meeting in full concert regalia and regales his fellow addicts with his life story. Doubts grow through scenes of young Elton, originally named Reginald Dwight, struggling to connect to distant parents (Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Mackintosh) as first a cherubic mugging kid and then as a cherubic mugging tween. Rocketman, uh, takes off when Egerton takes over for good in a lusty and powerful portrayal. The actor, who did all his own singing, belts out John’s discography through Elton’s early successes and subsequent domination of the stadium scene while Fletcher incorporates a magical realism into the performances that accentuates and further heightens Elton’s already-heightened stage persona. Away from the crowds, Elton forms a warm platonic partnership with lyricist Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell) and an abusive sexual one with manager John Reid (Richard Madden). The latter pushes Elton from concert to concert, ignoring his decompensating health until the singer’s finally striding into an AA meeting.
For a film about a man living a lengthy period of his life in extremes, Rocketman’s strengths and weaknesses also inhabit the poles. There are choices made in Lee Hall’s script that treat the audience with contempt, doubly so when the better choice exists in the film. Because this is a biopic, with all that entails, some pat psychoanalyzing must be engaged in. Rich and famous rock stars must go overboard with substances and sex not because both are readily available behind every corner, but because of one single thing in their childhoods. For Elton, that’s his father rejecting his plaintive requests for a hug, like mid-century Britons never had a cold parent before. The father remarries when Elton’s an adult and has more sons, sons that he plays with and hugs while Elton watches. Just include the watching, and Rocketman becomes less irritating. These examples abound, especially when the film returns to its unnecessary framing device and its Metaphors 101 choice to have Elton wearing a little less of his costume in each scene. Get it, he’s getting naked, physically and emotionally. A film about Elton John has a built-in license for boldness and grand displays when he’s performing. Why Hall couldn’t get all his bludgeoning out where it’s appropriate is a mystery.
Rocketman taketh away, and it giveth, often in big doses. The aforementioned set pieces scored to Elton’s greatest hits are imaginative and approach the transcendence of adoration while also communicating the invisible line between natural and chemically-boosted showmanship, if the difference even exists. For all of Bohemian Rhapsody’s pedantic assemblage of giant crowds and shot-for-shot recreations of Queen shows, Rocketman only gets the costumes right and lets Egerton do his thing under Fletcher’s invigorating eye. Despite calls for toning down the film’s gay material from anxious studio executives and repressive governments, Rocketman commits to its protagonist’s sexuality in a way that Bohemain Rhapsody did not. There’s no scolding or devilish temptation here, but a male gaze applied to male bodies and a pawing and passionate intimacy between Elton and Reid. While John’s father is a source of basic withholding, his mother is a source of practically taboo ambivalence toward her child. She wasn’t supposed to be with her ex-husband based on their root incompatibility and she never felt called to be a mother either. While John’s father has more kids in his next marriage, she, tellingly, does not. Despite the film presenting the possibility, Howard doesn’t play her as an unfeeling monster, but as a person who wouldn’t consign herself to the choices she felt were being made for her.
If songbook musicals in the form of biopics are going to continue to be made in this fashion, Rocketman is at least a step in the right direction. 2019 provided alternatives approaches and kept the songs with Yesterday and Blinded By the Light, but there are Aretha Franklin and Elvis biopics, among others, on the horizon. Those future films would be wise to take the verve of Fletcher’s setpieces and the intensity of Egerton’s performance, and eschew the framing devices and the psychologizing. No one wants to start an Elvis biopic as he regales a crew of hangers-on about his life, only to have to excuse himself for a fateful trip to the toilet as the film reaches its credits. C+
For a film about a man living a lengthy period of his life in extremes, Rocketman’s strengths and weaknesses also inhabit the poles. There are choices made in Lee Hall’s script that treat the audience with contempt, doubly so when the better choice exists in the film. Because this is a biopic, with all that entails, some pat psychoanalyzing must be engaged in. Rich and famous rock stars must go overboard with substances and sex not because both are readily available behind every corner, but because of one single thing in their childhoods. For Elton, that’s his father rejecting his plaintive requests for a hug, like mid-century Britons never had a cold parent before. The father remarries when Elton’s an adult and has more sons, sons that he plays with and hugs while Elton watches. Just include the watching, and Rocketman becomes less irritating. These examples abound, especially when the film returns to its unnecessary framing device and its Metaphors 101 choice to have Elton wearing a little less of his costume in each scene. Get it, he’s getting naked, physically and emotionally. A film about Elton John has a built-in license for boldness and grand displays when he’s performing. Why Hall couldn’t get all his bludgeoning out where it’s appropriate is a mystery.
Rocketman taketh away, and it giveth, often in big doses. The aforementioned set pieces scored to Elton’s greatest hits are imaginative and approach the transcendence of adoration while also communicating the invisible line between natural and chemically-boosted showmanship, if the difference even exists. For all of Bohemian Rhapsody’s pedantic assemblage of giant crowds and shot-for-shot recreations of Queen shows, Rocketman only gets the costumes right and lets Egerton do his thing under Fletcher’s invigorating eye. Despite calls for toning down the film’s gay material from anxious studio executives and repressive governments, Rocketman commits to its protagonist’s sexuality in a way that Bohemain Rhapsody did not. There’s no scolding or devilish temptation here, but a male gaze applied to male bodies and a pawing and passionate intimacy between Elton and Reid. While John’s father is a source of basic withholding, his mother is a source of practically taboo ambivalence toward her child. She wasn’t supposed to be with her ex-husband based on their root incompatibility and she never felt called to be a mother either. While John’s father has more kids in his next marriage, she, tellingly, does not. Despite the film presenting the possibility, Howard doesn’t play her as an unfeeling monster, but as a person who wouldn’t consign herself to the choices she felt were being made for her.
If songbook musicals in the form of biopics are going to continue to be made in this fashion, Rocketman is at least a step in the right direction. 2019 provided alternatives approaches and kept the songs with Yesterday and Blinded By the Light, but there are Aretha Franklin and Elvis biopics, among others, on the horizon. Those future films would be wise to take the verve of Fletcher’s setpieces and the intensity of Egerton’s performance, and eschew the framing devices and the psychologizing. No one wants to start an Elvis biopic as he regales a crew of hangers-on about his life, only to have to excuse himself for a fateful trip to the toilet as the film reaches its credits. C+
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