Bohemian Rhapsody is the Movie Freddie Deserved

I've been absent from posting for a month! Sorry. I've been bogged down in basketball and illness. I'll be honest, I didn't even write this new - it's something I wrote when the movie first came out (of course I saw it right away). Now that "BoRhap" is up for a bunch of Oscars, it seems timely. If I haven't told you already, I think Gwilym Lee is a revelation! I did watch the movie a second time this week and found even more problems with it - I sure hope it doesn't win much, but it's worth seeing anyway. Keep yourself alive!



By now, we all know the flaws of Bohemian Rhapsody, the jumbled semi-biopic about Queen front man, Freddie Mercury, but also sort of about the band itself. It plays like a film that lost its director halfway through production, which it did. The first hour is full of cliché and tired storytelling tropes. The casting and performances are excellent, but it drags under the weight of indecision.

That being said, the most compelling critiques of Bohemian Rhapsody are about its narrative choices. Mercury’s sexuality is downplayed or avoided and Queen’s historical timeline was cut into a million pieces and re-assembled randomly, with key elements fabricated or “finessed” to serve a storyline that doesn’t deserve it.

Still, I walked out of the theatre on a high, partly because of how cool the recreation of Queen’s Live Aid set was, but mostly because the music of Queen is just so wonderful. Mercury was magnetic and his voice is unparalleled (I know, because I spent three hours the other day listening to Youtube links labelled, “Best Freddie Mercury Impersonators” and not a single one was).

Ultimately, Bohemian Rhapsody is the story of perseverance and belief, the band’s belief in each other and Freddie’s belief in relationship and stability. It’s disappointing to moviegoers because what we know most about Mercury is the period he spent in Germany in the early ‘80s forging new territory in the definition of hedonism.

The most famous anecdote that’s been trotted out is from Lesley-Ann Jones’ biography in which she recounts Mercury serenading construction workers from a hotel balcony before inviting up the one with the “biggest dick.” The film depicts one scene where Mercury tells Mary Austin, the love of his life, he’s bisexual and she contradicts him, “No, you’re gay.”

Mercury’s life was largely about refusing to be pinned down and defined. That translated to sexuality in ways that were beyond uncomfortable, even for much of liberal society.

Queen guitarist, Brian May, and drummer, Roger Taylor, spoke intentionally about Mercury following his death from AIDS-related diseases in 1991. They sought to combat the stigmatized public image of Mercury, reminding the world that he was kind, generous, and faithful to the people he loved. Whatever promiscuity and experimentation happened during the tumultuous German period was not what defined the man they’d known more than half their lives.

The general public might prefer a film that explores how someone so vulnerable on stage and in the public eye could also engage in some of the darkest debauchery the ‘70s and ‘80s had on offer. The struggle for an outwardly confident, incredibly unselfconscious rock star to reconcile a deep inner insecurity and loneliness would’ve made better Oscar fare and a more compelling storyline, but it wouldn’t be true to the vision of Mercury those closest to him embraced.

Bohemian Rhapsody is not the movie we wanted. Beyond even the awkward pacing, poor writing, and odd (lack of) directorial choices, it just wasn’t the story we wanted to see. Bohemian Rhapsody is, though, the movie Freddie deserves. It is an attempt to capture the essence of a unique individual beyond merely the accumulation of his actions. Freddie Mercury was outrageous and amazing and, at times, selfish, inscrutable, and offensive. To his friends, though, he was Freddie. Could the film have benefitted from better creative professionals? Absolutely, but this isn’t our story to tell; it belongs to those people who most knew and loved him. Even the best version of the story they wanted to tell would never make us happy.

The Freddie we saw on stage was genuinely and authentically Freddie, but that wasn’t all of him and that’s a hard pill to swallow, especially when he so willingly and completely gave himself to his fans on that stage. “You’ve brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it; I thank you all.”

In the age of Instagram, we’re accustomed to seeing behind the veil of celebrity. In reality, we’ve just agreed to the shared delusion that those “candid” moments are authentic as opposed to them being part of the overall marketing machine.

Fans want Freddie’s larger than life persona to be all of who he is. Bohemian Rhapsody shows a Freddie Mercury who desperately wanted to please everyone around him. A more compelling movie would’ve explored how he reconciled coming as close as anyone ever has to being everything to everybody, while also not really knowing who he wanted himself to be.

Instead, his friends chose to make a movie that graciously explained such reconciliation wasn’t necessary. Bohemian Rhapsody illustrates why people – fans and friends alike – loved Freddie Mercury. It’s the movie he deserved. It’s not what we wanted, but it is what we have – and there’s no truer description of life than that.