The Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” begins and ends with “Live Aid” which took place in 1985, I was born a year later in 1986, I’m 32 now and the British Rock band “Queen” is still making waves in contemporary pop culture.
My Dad was a Queen fan which probably explains why I am familiar with their music but aside from that, their songs were in movies I watched growing up, “D2: Mighty Ducks”, “A Knights Tale” and even recently “Suicide Squad” (don’t judge me but I haven’t seen “Wayne’s World” yet).
More than just their music though, the film also tells the story of the band “Queen” -one of the world’s best selling music artists, how they formed, Freddie auditioned for guitarist/astrophysicist Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and Dental Student (he’s not a dentist) Roger Taylor in a parking lot, bassist John Deacon (Joseph Mazello) joins in later. We see how the bad rose to fame and even how some of their songs came to be. But of course, the star of the film is Freddie Mercury, who is considered as one of the greatest singers of all time.
“Bohemian Rhapsody” highlights the timeless music of Queen, the songs that you grew up loving and brings to center stage the story you didn’t know.
Apparently there is a lot of things that I didn’t know about Freddie, for one, I didn’t know that “Freddie Mercury” was not his real name, I did not know that the iconic performer was born as Farrokh Bulsara and that he was born of Parsi descent and is from Zansibar (now Tanzania).
Nor did I know about his relationship with Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) of course my mom was familiar with the story as it’s probably their ” celebrity gossip” back in the day. I also did not know that Freddie was a big cat lover (like me) !
Rami Malek delivers an incredible performance as Freddy Mercury but aside from the music, it is also a story of being true to yourself, despite the confusing times that can be filled with loneliness. It is the story of how one man, one band proved the naysayers wrong and marched to the beat of their own drum.
With that being said, a biopic will always have it’s limits, so you still have to do your research and take what you see with a grain of salt, this being especially true of a PG rated film that deals with themes of drugs, sex, AIDS and homosexuality.
You must also consider the creative liberties taken due to a limited running time and of course to deliver a story that follows a movie arc. The film concludes in “Live Aid” and I don’t think that Freddie was able to get all of his affairs in order just before the big event. And I also feel that Mary seems to just hang around and show up just to get the plot going.
Despite the creative differences and behind the scenes drama in the making of the film (director Bryan Singer left the project late in production) the film, delivers on it’s “concert experience” watch it in IMAX or in a cinema with a great sound system so you can get the best of that “it’s like you’re in the concert feels”. Aside from that, Malek’s performance is a must see and a cannot miss!
7/10 “Bohemian Rhapsody” is now showing.