7/14/2023 0 Comments Elton john rocket man movie![]() ![]() ![]() The film starts by depicting John’s childhood and his relationships with an extremely critical mother and an emotionally absent father. This is why " Rocketman," the 2019 biopic of music legend Elton John, which received multiple Golden Globes nominations this week, is so refreshing. For the majority of people struggling with substance use and addiction, their paths to treatment and recovery are not so simple or streamlined. The audience rarely sees the full picture of the events that lead to substance use and addiction. More often than not, a character’s substance use is highly sensationalized - a needle in the arm, eyes rolling back in a dirty room, whereas their journey to recovery is downplayed and almost immediate. For a while Elton, claiming to be bisexual, hides his self-loathing in a short-lived marriage to Renate Blauel (Celinde Schoenmaker), a union that fools no one, least of all its two participants.Watching a film or television show portray a character in active addiction can be a frustrating experience. The script hints that Elton hides behind his gaudy stage gear (Julian Day did the wittily extravagant costumes) to disguise the fear that makes him feel small and unexceptional inside and given to thoughts of suicide. But a melancholy pervades Elton when the lights go off. It’s a lavish, risky, anything-goes production number, splendidly shot by George Richmond. Making his debut in Los Angeles at the Troubadour, with the Beach Boys and Leon Russell in attendance, Elton literally levitates off the stage singing “Crocodile Rock.” So does the audience. As played by the outstanding Richard Madden - Robb Stark on Game of Thrones and a much-buzzed Emmy contender for his role in Bodyguard - Reid exudes a seductive eroticism, equal parts dazzle and danger.įletcher does not neglect the flash that made Elton such a galvanizing stage presence. That comes for the closeted Elton in the suave person of John Reid, who would become his manager and Machiavellian albatross. Since Bernie is straight, there’s no sex. At one point, when Elton’s excesses drive Bernie away, the two share verses on “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” It’s Bernie’s own feelings being expressed when he sings, “So goodbye yellow brick road/where the dogs of society howl/you can’t plant me in your penthouse/I’m going back to my plough.”Įlton and Bernie are the film’s core love story. Fletcher daringly refuses to confine the musical numbers to the concert stage. From a few tinkling notes on the piano to a fully-realized performance, the “Your Song” moment is a gorgeously staged heartbreaker. In an inspired sequence, Elton puts music to Bernie’s lyrics for “Your Song” (“I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words/how wonderful life is while you’re in the world”). It’s more than a little bit funny how a great piece of acting can knock the hell out of tainted preconceptions.Įlton’s solace comes from his piano (he’s a prodigy) and a friendship with Bernie Taupin (a superb Jamie Bell in a deeply felt, beautifully empathetic portrayal), a poet whose allusive lyrics would bond the two in a lifetime collaboration. While Dexter Fletcher, who finished Bohemian Rhapsody after original filmmaker Bryan Singer was fired for going AWOL, fuels this musical fantasia with pinwheeling ingenuity, Egerton is the one who gives its heart. And unlike Rhapsody‘s lip-syncing Rami Malek, Egerton is a virtuoso who does his own singing and busts his own moves. The Kingsman star gets so far inside the man and his music that he and Elton - a shy kid off stage and a strutting peacock on - seem to breathe as one. But the film owes its success less to shock value than to sheer cinematic inventiveness and Egerton’s total immersion in the role.Įlton John’s Magical Mystery Movie: Inside the Making of Rocketman The PG-13 Rhapsody took heat for sanitizing Mercury’s sex, drugs and rock & roll lifestyle and for being, in the words of Bill Maher, “not gay enough.” Rest assured that there’s plenty of sex, not to mention pills being popped and coke getting snorted, courtesy of this movie’s R-rated parameters. ![]() Another rock biography with an Oscar-caliber performance so soon after Bohemian Rhapsody? Critics have been more welcoming to Rocketman, starring an electrifying Taron Egerton as the young, addicted, conflicted, gay and gifted Elton John, than they were to the story of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, which had to settle for becoming the highest-grossing music biopic of all time ($900 million). ![]()
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