Elton John biopic a solid film worth viewing
Brace yourselves: It’s biopic time in Hollywood. Following both the critical and commercial success of last year’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” studios are beginning to double down on the trend and grab at fading (or faded) rock stars’ lives with reckless abandon. Along with Netflix’s already released “The Dirt” chronicling Mötley Crüe and Danny Boyle’s upcoming Beatles fan-fic “Yesterday,” you can assume there’s plenty more in the barrel just waiting to get shot down our throats.
It’s not really any surprise that Elton John would be the second star to get the big screen treatment. His life is already a rhinestoned musical menagerie of drugs, sex, fame and folly. After all, the script quite literally already wrote itself, and, frankly, it was always going to be a smash hit. What other artist can connect crowds who frequented Studio 54 to people who appreciate the family-friendly appeal of “The Lion King?” The question was always going to be if it simply was going to be any good or not, and the cards weren’t exactly stacked in its favor.
Forgoing a melodramatic behind-the-scenes vibe, “Rocketman” instead goes full-tilt and decides to be an unabashed and unashamed musical through and through, featuring huge dance numbers, theatrical cut-away scenes and a star supplying his own voice to imitate all the classics of a huge rock star … who’s still alive! In fact, John’s alive-ness plays a giant role in the entire production; he’s the film’s executive producer, and his overseeing presence is not subtle.
But with the giant “Mamma Mia!”-like dominoes the film sets up, it executes the fall-down pretty cleanly. Opening with a Bollywood-toned set piece featuring a 7-year-old John (then Reginald Kenneth Dwight) belting, “I’m a bitch, I’m a bitch/Oh, the bitch is back” and leading quickly to a blast from childhood to young adulthood through a mesmerizing carnival-dance number featuring “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” it’s really fun in the same vein as a great piece of musical theater. It keenly taps into its audience overtly and without subtlety.
Fittingly, the film balances the meteoric rise of the musician and focuses just as intently on the hurricane of a life that resulted from the stardom. John’s fall into slums of sex, drugs and toxic dependence are on full display as he simultaneously sells out baseball stadiums and arenas across the globe. In a more fictionalized world, it would all feel so clichéd: the troubled superstar who has it all but feels empty and stuffs voids with the recipe for a downfall. But this is a real story. Its authenticity and source (no matter how skewing) is impossible to ignore.
As noted, the film isn’t without its flaws. There are scenes that feel a little doctored – a little forced here and there – and always worn with a heart on its sleeve, sometimes to comical effort. But it all gels with the gaudy vibe John exudes, and it touches on some moments of authenticity that feel completely tangible and emotionally rocking. This point of credit almost entirely falls on the shoulders of leading man Taron Egerton, who takes on this role with such immersion and flair that glimpsing the real-life actor is shocking in comparison. Based on his relatively small success (mostly stemming from the brutish, macho spy series “The Kingsmen”), the Englishman truly knocks this performance out of the park with both his vocal recreation and his acting (he genuinely perfects that goofy, full-tooth smile), willing this film to its ecstatic core.
The secret to a film like “Rocketman” is that it really has to have confidence in itself, no matter how earnest it might be. With the success of these recent rock biopics, we’ll surely be seeing more of them, which is both exciting and eye-rolling at the same time. I can picture some really amazing potential in the stories of David Bowie, Prince and even smaller pillars in the musical community like Big Star, the New York Dolls or Captain Beefheart. I also can imagine some real travesties in a major studio’s depiction of Nirvana, The Rolling Stones or Carole King. Already slated down the pipeline, there’s a very promising-looking fictional coming-of-age tale based around Bruce Springsteen, as well as a really terrible-looking depiction of the plane wreck that ended the lives of half of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
The key to a biopic is being truthful. These films will have to be true to the characters’ images they’re recreating, or they are going to fail as stories. Elton John decided very early in his career that he wanted it to spark joy and bleed color. “Rocketman” succeeds at doing both.
