{"id":74921,"date":"2018-11-02T18:26:06","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T22:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/weekend-movie-review-bohemian-rhapsody\/"},"modified":"2018-11-02T18:26:06","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T22:26:06","slug":"weekend-movie-review-bohemian-rhapsody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/weekend-movie-review-bohemian-rhapsody\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Movie Review: \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Weekend Movie Review: \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

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Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury in \u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018C\u2019mon Gay Shame!\u2019 That\u2019s what we imagine the movies are shouting at us right now, spirits ablaze and fingers snapping. Though it\u2019s surely a coincidence, the Freddie Mercury<\/a> biopic <\/span>Bohemian Rhapsody<\/i><\/strong> (\u2018yaaas, Queen\u2019?) and the gay<\/a> conversation therapy drama <\/span>Boy Erased<\/span><\/i> have arrived simultaneously. This accidental double feature is a double closeted whammy. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019d be wonderful to report that they\u2019re both worth seeing, but only one might rock you. And it isn\u2019t the one with the famous \u201cwe will we will rock you\u201d chorus. But more on <\/span>Boy Erased<\/span><\/i>, later, since it\u2019s just beginning a platform run on 5 screens and will be expanding as awards season heats up. Bohemian Rhapsody<\/em>, on the other hand, is opening wide on 4,000 screens and hoping to fill them like Queen filled stadiums\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Just before the bulk of <\/span>Bohemian Rhapsody <\/span><\/i>kicks off we follow Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) on a long walk behind the scenes of Live-Aid where he\u2019s about to perform a famous set with the band. Before he hits the stage in his white tank top and tight tight jeans, he\u2019s hopping up and down, a born performer pumping himself up for what he knows is a crucial legacy moment. <\/span><\/p>\n

Live-Aid, the historic 1985 concert for famine relief in Africa, isn\u2019t a bad choice as framing devices go even if it fudges with the actual timetable of Mercury\u2019s life. Live-Aid carries its own mythic weight in the world\u2019s collective consciousness and it was also arguably the last time Queen truly reigned. The band would release three more albums with Mercury and go on one more tour before Mercury\u2019s death from AIDS complications, but they would never again be as popular as they\u2019d been from the mid \u201970s through 1984 (their last top 40 single in the U.S. was \u201cRadio Ga Ga\u201d released in 1984). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Just as Freddie gets pumped up, a cold shower for the audience. We retreat back in time, to begin a dull Behind the Music style narrative. You know the kind. The film charts the band\u2019s humble beginnings, how Freddie Mercury came to join them, their rise from rags to riches, the recording that made them legendary (1975\u2019s album \u201cA Night at the Opera\u201d), and their subsequent flameout when personal addictions and artistic differences got in the way. The rise and fall of famous musicians is one of cinema\u2019s most familiar plots. <\/span><\/p>\n

What <\/span>Bohemian Rhapsody <\/span><\/i>has going for it, in theory, is that its central figure is Freddie Mercury, one of rock\u2019s coolest and queerest legends. Surely his<\/em> biopic will be different!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Why be different when you can blend in, this particular movie seems to say, completely missing the actual text of the screenplay which tells us over and over that Queen only succeeded due to originality and experimentation. <\/span><\/p>\n

Though it\u2019s unwise to let behind the scenes rumors define a movie for you \u2014 plenty of movie classics have had troubled shoots \u2014 <\/span>Bohemian Rhapsody<\/span><\/i> bears visible scars from its own origin story. If you\u2019ll recall Bryan Singer mysteriously disappeared during the shoot, leaving the cinematography to take over and Singer was later fired. The movie was cobbled together from what he shot, as well as the work of replacement director Dexter Fletcher (who is keeping the gay<\/a> musician biopic thing going by directing the Elton John musical Rocketman<\/em> next)\u00a0 Throughout the movie there are strange Frankenstein editing choices, and scenes that don\u2019t play well or needed a follow up scene to land. Two particularly messy scenes involve a highly distracting Mike Myers in heavy makeup as a grumpy record executive who doesn\u2019t \u201cget\u201d Queen.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

As for Malek, he\u2019s trying hard to make the wobbling picture look like it\u2019s dancing, with flamboyant swagger, and defiant quipping. Malek is less successful at imbuing the rusty machine-like movie with soul. The performance becomes repetitive with so little substance and nuance in its ideas about who this iconic musician was.<\/p>\n

Most unfortunate of all is the treatment of Mercury\u2019s sexual life. You\u2019d never know a gay<\/a> man<\/a> directed the film because it plays like a film from another era (and I don\u2019t mean in the \u201cperiod piece\u201d sense). We spend a lot of time watching Mercury pine for his ex girlfriend<\/a> Mary (Lucy Boynton) and we didn\u2019t need to; a little goes a long way with Malek\u2019s memorably huge sad eyes. <\/span><\/p>\n

Whenever other gay<\/a> men<\/a> are involved the movie is all seedy asides, anonymous unseen trysts. One early scene after the band is semi-successful has the gall to suggest that Mercury is inexperienced with men<\/a> hitting on him, as if he hadn\u2019t yet been \u2018corrupted\u2019 by the gay<\/a>. Sometimes the movie even deploys \u2018scary\u2019 lighting for the gays<\/a>, red filters or shadowy vibes; there might as well be a neon \u201cSIN\u201d sign lighting up in case you don\u2019t get the picture that gay<\/a> sex<\/a> is trouble!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not personally one of those gay<\/a> men<\/a> who hates every depiction of problematic gays<\/a>. Gay villains can be a lot of campy or stylish fun, for example, and movies and television would be poorer if gay<\/a> characters were only noble. But Bohemian Rhapsody<\/em> only allows for two types of gay<\/a> men<\/a>: the tragic lonely queen (Mercury) and the serpentine predator (Allen Leech from Downton Abbey <\/em>plays a music executive who is big trouble once he\u2019s slithered his way into Freddie\u2019s bed). There\u2019s arguably an attempt at course correction with the well-adjusted gay<\/a> in Jim Hutton (Aaron McCusker), Mercury\u2019s real life final boyfriend who stayed with him for the rest of his life, but even this subplot is inadvertently sex<\/a>-negative since it\u2019s depicted as so pure and chaste. <\/span><\/p>\n

Thank god for the music then. The recounting of the experimental recording of \u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d and the brainstorming for \u201cWe Will Rock You\u201d are both popcorn highlights: chewy and yummy with no nutritional value.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The concert sequences, Live-Aid included, are the single best reason to see <\/span>Bohemian Rhapsody<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you love Queen it\u2019s inarguably pleasurable to hear the parade of hits again (Malek lipsynchs so it\u2019s Freddie\u2018s vocals you\u2019re always hearing), and see recreations of famous concerts with their stadium-shaking foot-stomping power. In fact the movie might well have worked had it been as experimentally daring as \u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d itself. What would it have looked like, to toss off one thought experiment, as just a concert movie, with all the drama woven into the performances and behind the scenes moments on tour? Or more condensed to just the writing and release of \u201cA Night at the Opera\u201d letting the seeds of common knowledge about what would later befall Mercury to bloom in the imagination rather than being lazily dramatized? <\/span><\/p>\n

The point is this: Mercury was far too unique a star to be saddled with a generic biopic. A proper cinematic tribute would require \u2018a kind of magic,\u2019 to use another Queen title, that this disjointed, uncomfortably gay<\/a> picture doesn\u2019t even attempt to find.<\/span><\/p>\n

The post Weekend Movie Review: \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad Gay News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Weekend Movie Review: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n