Biopics are a tricky thing to nail. There’s no one way to do it and many a writer or director have found success or failure in all manor of tones and structures when trying to tell the real stories of real people. I don’t think I would place Bohemian Rhapsody in either the success or failure column. It’s a mixed bag of a film that reaches some dramatic highs but is pulled down by cliches, surface level storytelling, and an overly sanitary production. Like the band the film is based on, Bohemian Rhapsody finds success when it can hit the smaller moments of emotions in between triumphant theatrics. But it takes us far too long to get there and the movie never seems willing to spill enough details to feel particularly memorable.
Bohemian Rhapsody is a pretty by the numbers biopic. The film jumps out of the gate by steamrolling through years of development and characterization and laying pretty heavy on the music story cliches. Every scene in the first half feels like it’s winking and nudging at you as it overtly references iconic aspects of the bands look and sound. The pacing early on is really rough and sees us jumping awkwardly from event to event without any sort of transition to and from these moments. The editing is not particularly tight either during these opening sequences and leaves the film feeling even more jumbled than it already was.
Toward the second half the movie starts to find it’s footing and focuses a lot more on Freddie Mercury as an individual. It’s here that things start to become a little more cohesive and events in the story have a lot more rhyme and reason to them. Despite most of the second and third acts feeling stronger thematically and emotionally than the first half, the whole film is constantly pulled down by cliches and over sentimentality. There are plenty of emotional tugs at the heart towards the end of the film that do not feel earned whatsoever and the story is packed to the brim with tired music movie motifs. Most of the time I spent watching Bohemian Rhapsody, I felt that the films writers (Screenplay by Anthony McCarten with a story by McCarten and Peter Morgan) were running off a bulleted list that they had made after reading the liners notes of the bands greatest hits album. There’s plenty that works, especially when exploring the flaws of Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) and the turmoil the band experienced, but it’s all very touched up and surface level. The team seems content to merely reference it's subject matter without ever properly exploring it.
While Bohemian Rhapsody is packaged as a Queen biopic, it’s Freddie’s story at heart, and when he’s the focus the movie is at it’s best. The moments involving him and his wife Mary (Lucy Boynton) are the strongest by far. Most of what keeps this movie moving is Malek’s charismatic and occasionally tortured portrayal of Mercury. Through his voice and physicality Malek makes an impressive transformation into the late superstar and his work is without a doubt the films backbone. The acting across the board is pretty strong, probably the strongest thing the movie has going for it. I could also point out Ben Hardy (Roger Taylor) as strong performance that serve as needed contrast to Malek. These performances are paired with grand, colorful sets and a gorgeous array of costumes that compliment the characters personalities beautifully.
I wish I had more that I could compliment the film on, but at the end of the day it’s a mostly dry and disconnected music biopic that just so happens to feature a handful of really strong performances. The cliched structure of Bohemian Rhapsody strangles the film, and feels like a dramatic retelling of the bands Wikipedia entry instead of a true portrait of the people and the events that shaped them. There are high points, and the concert scenes are a lot of fun, but the movie never shows anyone in a new light. Fans of the band will come for the music and stay for Malek's attention grabbing performance, but it won’t tell you anything you didn't already know and it’ll never show you the people you know in a way you haven’t already seen them.