Bohemian Rhapsody | Film Review

Is this the real life? Or is this just fantasy? The much maligned and equally anticipated Freddie Mercury biopic – Bohemian Rhapsody – is a bit of both. The woes of development of this film are well-known by now with Sacha Baron Cohen leaving due to creative differences with the surviving Queen members, and Bryan Singer getting fired over a dispute with new star Rami Malek and was replaced by Dexter Fletcher to complete the film. Singer still gets a full director’s credit as per DGA guidelines, but has this affected the film?

It’s been no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise, but the end result is still pretty good. The movie starts and ends with the 1985 Live Aid concert, an event so massive that anyone born before 1980 can remember it. Queen’s performance was hailed as the best of the bunch and gave the band an adrenaline shot to go on to new, great things. The movie tells the story of how they got to that point and focuses on lead singer Farrokh Bulsara aka Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek), who is considered by many (including me) as the greatest front-man of all time. Brian May (Gwilym Lee), Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) and John Deacon (Joe Mazzello) are equally important as the Queen family members he bickers with, but whom he can’t do without. Other important players in the film are his lifelong companion Mary Austin (an impressive Lucy Boynton), manager John Reid (Aiden Gillen), personal assistant Paul Prenter (Allen Leech) and lawyer/manager Jim ‘Miami’ Beach (Tom Hollander). The real Jim Beach is also a producer of the film, and Brian May and Roger Taylor serve as executive music producers.

Every movie that is an adaptation, whether it is a book or someone’s life, has to make concessions to make a story work on screen. Bohemian Rhapsody is no exception; characters are combined or certain events are placed differently in the timeline. There was criticism about this, but I didn’t experience it as a negative thing, it didn’t take me out of the story. The movie touches upon Freddie’s relationships and sexuality. It shows his bisexuality and that crazy little thing called love he felt for Mary Austin, for whom he wrote Love Of My Life and who was immensely important to him. The film does come across as a bit tame when considering the stories that went around about Freddie’s lifestyle, but for this film I feel it’s being touched upon enough to come across.

Rami Malek masterfully embodies Freddie’s swagger and not only looks the part, but manages to completely capture the essence of who Freddie was, especially on stage. The other members of Queen look like they’ve been abducted Bill and Ted style from the past and put into this film to play themselves. The resemblances in looks, voice and manners is mind blowing, but the real MVP is the music. The film shows the creation of several of Queen’s iconic songs, which sometimes comes across a bit as paint-by-numbers film-making – but when the songs are this good, that really doesn’t matter much. The movie recreates the glorious Live Aid concert almost beat for beat and I had to restrain myself from singing and clapping along with the music in the cinema. It’s the absolute highlight of the film, and confirms that Queen will rock you, wherever you are.

So does this biopic bite the dust or is it a champion? That totally depends on how you feel about the changes made to Freddie’s story or about Queen’s music in general. For me, the spot-on casting and fantastic music lift this biopic up and allow us to soar with Rami Malek’s wonderful performance as the great Freddie Mercury to rock heaven, a heaven for everyone.