Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Actor (Rami Malek)
Best Film Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Best Sound Editing
If there’s one Best Picture nominee I’ve wrestled with more than any other this year, it’s this one. In theory Bohemian Rhapsody should be exactly the type of movie that I adore – it’s playful, visually captivating, and centres around one of the most creative bands in music history. It also evidently holds mass appeal, managing to win two major awards at the Golden Globes, become the seventh highest grossing movie of 2018, and set the all-time box office record for biopics. But I also have a lot of issues with it, and most of them come back to a single point – this film treats its subject matter disingenuously.
Bohemian Rhapsody plays very fast and loose with the facts, manufacturing drama simply to create a neat Hollywood story with good guys, bad guys, arguments, reconciliation, and tragedy. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that biopics shouldn’t have any leeway when it comes to adapting story beats and cutting content to fit everything into a 2-hour format. But Bohemian Rhapsody pushes the limits of Freddie’s life story so much that the adapted screenplay is almost a completely different narrative. Nearly every single conflict in the film was invented for the purpose of entertainment, indicating that director Bryan Singer’s priorities were more in line with playing on timeworn movie tropes than conveying any real essence of who Freddie Mercury and his band mates were.
The scapegoating of Paul Prenter (who was a far more complex person in reality), the breakdown between the band members due to Freddie’s decision to go solo (which was much less of an issue than depicted since all of them were going solo at that point), Freddie’s diagnosis of AIDS which motivated him to give his greatest ever performance at Live Aid (which really happened in the reverse order, and had nothing to do with each other) – it gets to the point where watching Bohemian Rhapsody feels less like a tribute to the lives of the musicians, but rather just a showcase of their greatest hits.
On that level it would be a fine movie, because each song really is a thrilling and exciting spectacle that sweeps you up in the moment. But as a biopic the facts are treated far too lightly, giving the impression that no one working on this film really cared much about Freddie’s story in the first place.
Cinematically, Bohemian Rhapsody is a marvel, and for a while I was able to look past its flaws and enjoy the visual feast. But there came a point when I realised that the same joke was being played out over and over again – usually when someone expressed some innocuous doubt that Queen or one of their songs would ever be successful. And when it started to sink in that Anthony McCarten’s screenplay mostly relies on biopic clichés, it started to overshadow my appreciation for everything else that was going on.
This is to say nothing of the huge amount of backlash the film has received, with Bryan Singer just recently having had four allegations of sexual assault come against him. Coupled with his inappropriate behaviour on set that led to him being fired from his own movie, Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar chances don’t look great.
But independent of all these controversies it is unlikely Bohemian Rhapsody would have won any big Oscar awards anyway. It had a lot of potential to accurately capture the life of such a vibrant, influential musician, but it squanders this by straying so far from Freddie’s true history. So good on it for becoming such a massive hit and winning the hearts of the public, but it just isn’t a strong enough film to compete against the other nominees of 2019.
Its likely winning Best Actor..& wrong, it doesn’t do Freddie any injustice, you have to change some things for dramatic purposes, but all in all it tells Queen’s story of coming together to create the greatest rock band of their time! Also Freddie never wanted his private life or death focused on..don’t assume you know him better than his friends & family..