Review of Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) by Sierra W — 03 Nov 2018

Every critic who whines that "Freddie would have wanted something more outrageous" or "the movie should have probed deeper into the band's personal excesses" clearly has no idea what they're talking about. Watch any interview with the cast & crew and you'll see how much love and respect went into the making of this movie. Watch any interview with Freddie Mercury and you'll see that he consistently had to deflect rude and presumptuous jabs by the press, who always seemed to crave the seedy details and never cared much for his artistic contribution.

This is a movie about Queen that never set out to upstage Queen. People are saying the plot is formulaic, but that's how it should be. It would have been exploitative for the filmmakers to use Queen's musical legacy in order to launch a separate, selfish film legacy. Critics seem to be missing the intention and heart present in this movie, just like they missed the intention and heart in Queen's music from the very beginning.

If anyone is wondering, the film is NOT homophobic. I don't even know where critics got that idea. Freddie's struggle is clearly with the clash between his profound love for Mary and his growing awareness of his true sexuality. He's not struggling with the fact that he's gay; he's struggling with how this fact will impact this person he otherwise deeply loves. If anything this movie is beautifully radical in that it avoids the Hollywood tendency of problematizing sexuality, instead opting for the interpersonal complexity that exists in the real world.

Additionally, Jim Hutton shows up and brings warmth you can almost feel through the screen. Paul Prenter shows up and is manipulative ("villainy") because he's a manipulative person, not because he's gay. I guess that subtlety is lost on a lot of the critics.

The film also does NOT gloss over the excesses in the band's life, the evidence is there. It just doesn't give the grimy satisfaction of letting you be a fly on the wall during their wild times. The focus is on the characters, not on the surface-level hedonism of their rockstar lifestyle. And that's how it should be. Critics seem to be craving, still, nearly thirty years after Freddie Mercury's death, a sort of voyeuristic account of his private world. He was hounded by press during his final weeks. The whole critic swarm around this movie feels like a distasteful echo; it's bitter and unfair.

This movie is lovely. It's a legacy film. Rami Malek brings Freddie's light back to the world like a gift, all the while allowing him to remain an enigma whose inner thoughts are never fully spread out for onlookers to poke at and categorize.

Joe Mazzello, Gwilym Lee, and Ben Hardy are all phenomenal and haven't gotten nearly enough credit from critics, who treat them like cardboard cutouts. These guys didn't even use hand doubles - they learned their characters' instruments. They did so much research it's astonishing. And the filmmakers' decision to let Freddie's arc be the central focus is clearly intentional, gracious, and necessary.

If you haven't seen this film, go see it. Ignore the critics and make your own decision. Go in looking to see the movie that exists, not the movie you wish existed ("more sex! more drugs!"). If you must read critic reviews, at least keep in mind that every time they say, "Freddie would have wanted something more outrageous," they really mean, "WE wanted something more outrageous about Freddie." The only people who have any right to guess what Freddie would have wanted are the people who knew and loved him personally. And all of them were either involved in the making of this film or gave their blessing from afar.

Go see this movie. You'll have fun, you'll fall in love with Queen all over again. Be a part of the crowd that has proved critics wrong about this legendary band for the last fifty years.