Rocketman

Starring: Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard

Director: Dexter Fletcher

The video essayist Patrick Willems had an interesting proposal for any filmmaker that endeavors to make a biographical film about a musician. Sit down and watch Jake Kasdan’s masterful parody Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. If you are going to do anything in your movie that happens in that one… don’t. This isn’t a sleight on Walk Hard, but rather that the conventions of the rock star biopic are so codified and well-trod that they were overripe for parody in 2007. That’s not all the film-maker's fault. The life beats of a rock star tend to follow a pattern. Most are born into obscurity, some into poverty. At some point a talent for music and a certain charisma emerge. Wealth and fame are overwhelming and many fall into addiction. Relationships fail. People die. If said rock star is still alive, they typically get themselves together. Or else… not. 2019 has already seen the Mötley Crüe biopic The Dirt (which was hot garbage, but I liked it anyway… which is much how I feel about Mötley Crüe). 2018 saw the Queen (but mainly Freddie Mercury) biopic Bohemian Rhapsody which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and won Best Actor for Rami Malek. The film was famously troubled when creep director Bryan Singer was fired midway through production. Actor-turned-director Dexter Fletcher completed the film, though his name was left out of the credits and never mentioned during Bohemian Rhapsody’s award season success. Now he returns to the genre with Rocketman, “based on a true fantasy.”

Dewey Cox has to think about his whole life before he plays a show. Elton John prefers his recollections occur in an AA meeting while dressed in full stage devil regalia. Young Reginald Dwight (Matthew Illesley) grew up with a distant father (Steven Mackintosh) and callous mother (Bryce Dallas Howard, doing a pretty decent English accent to my American ears). He soon develops a prodigious talent for piano and once he grows into an adult (Taron Egerton) he has a passion for rock ‘n roll. He meets the lyricist Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell) and adopts the stage name Elton John and the rest is history. Richard Madden of Game of Thrones plays Scottish music manager John Reid. Reid was previously played by Madden’s Game of Thrones co-star Aiden Gillen in Bohemian Rhapsody, but Rocketman has a decidedly different take on the character. Elton and John are lovers for a portion of the movie and while I couldn’t believe this (in 2019!), it turns out that Rocketman is the first major studio film to feature a gay sex scene, so yay progress.

The first thing I was not expecting: this film is a musical. “Duh, Jake. It’s about a singer.” I mean that songs are not limited to stage performances. Characters burst into song to express their emotions. Extras begin choreographed dance routines. This largely helps avoid another Dewey Coxism: saying a phrase like “guilty as charged” then immediately having the inspiration for a song called “Guilty as Charged.” That would read as disingenuous anyway since Taupin wrote all the words anyway. Having the characters belt out “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” in a moment of upset just feels better. Broadway has known this trick with jukebox musicals for years. (One of so many reasons Broadway’s Jersey Boys beats the hell of Clint Eastwood’s dull film version.) The real attraction of many of these films is the songs, and the musical format is the best showcase for them.

The downside of the film is those familiar story beats. Addiction and recovery is a harrowing thing that people go through in life and is not to be taken lightly, but seeing it in Every. Damn. Movie. gets somewhat tiring. Taron Egerton’s previous cinematic ties to Sir Elton include singing “I’m Still Standing” in Sing and co-starring with the man himself in Kingsmen: The Golden Circle. That experience seems to pay off as he radiates rock star charisma in the role. Unburdened from the constraints of finishing someone else’s film, Dexter Fletcher’s direction has all the flair required to tell the tale of such a flamboyant showman. If someone has to tell the same rock star story that is told over and over, I’m glad it’s told with such flair.

B+