Rocketman

At long last, the streak of by-the-numbers biofilms about famed rock singers ends.  Rocketman is joyous, explosive, and filled with fantastic visuals.  Director Dexter Fletcher (who took over directing duties for Bryan Singer during the last few weeks of Bohemian Rhapsody) wisely forgoes the cut and dry approach, and instead turns the life story of Elton John into a dazzling and dizzying movie musical.

Fletcher does not hold back here.  He uses Elton's music to tell his story, and stages elaborate and imaginative musical sequences that are a cross between a Broadway fantasy and a fever dream.  Given the life that Elton lived for a long period of his career, I think this approach is appropriate.  This is a movie that gives us a warts and all look at the man (the film's R-rating insures that we get to see his drug, alcohol and sex addiction on full display), while also having numerous flights of fancy moments throughout.  The first time we see Taron Egerton as John, he is walking into a substance abuse support meeting wearing a sequined and winged feathered devil costume, complete with horns.  The therapy session will act as a framing device throughout the film as John recounts his career, his youth, and his quest for love.  In a somewhat powerful bit of symbolism, he strips the pieces of his costume off as he talks, revealing the man he truly is as he digs deeper into his past pain.

It is John's search for love that makes up the film.  From his childhood, with his distant war veteran father (Steven Mackintosh) and often cold mother (Bryce Dallas Howard), all the way up to the abusive relationship he shared with his lover/manager John Reid (Richard Madden), Elton spends a majority of his life certain that he will never truly be accepted.  The fact that he is gay in a time period that does not accept it, and has to muddle through a sham marriage to a woman only makes him all the more miserable.  So, we watch him descend into binges with cocaine, alcohol and binge shopping in order to mask the pain that he is feeling.  The elaborate costumes that he wears on stage becomes an armor to keep him safe.  In one scene, we see Elton trying to smile in front of a mirror before he goes out on stage.  It is forced and lonely, but it protects him from letting other people know how depressed he truly is.

The only thing resembling acceptance in John's life comes from his friendship with songwriter Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell), who worked with him from the beginning of his career.  Less you think that Rocketman is a glimpse of the people who wandered in and out of the singer's life over the years, this film is far too passionate for that.  The people in John's life are given emotional weight and depth, almost as much as John himself gets.  This is the rare biopic that doesn't just mark off the famous events in the subject's life, and jump from moment to moment with no connecting tissue to get the audience involved.  Beyond this, the film is anchored by Egerton's astonishing portrayal of John.  He not only perfectly embodies the man in all of his persona and stage presence, but he sings all of the man's songs himself (no easy feat), and creates as believable of a performance as you would want.  This is not just mimicry, either.  He is just as energetic during his dramatic moments as he is at recreating the concert moments.

But what truly makes the film stand out from the uninspired films we've gotten about the lives of Ray Charles, James Brown, Tupac Shakur and Freddie Mercury over the years is that this film is also a full-fledged musical where John's own songs act as the narrative engine that pulls the story.  Rather than just recreating memorable performances or taking us into the recording studio once in a while like other films do, this movie crafts fantastic and memorable musical numbers that combine special effects with elaborate choreography.  The way Fletcher stages these sequences never take us out of the reality of the story being told, but instead act as a visual feast to emphasize the emotion of the scene, or to move the story along.  There are sequences here that are pure fantasy (such as the scene where Elton as a young boy dances through the streets of his town with a back up chorus), emotional, and even kind of magical, such as when Elton performs in concert and literally lifts his audience off of their feet.

The style of the musical sequences, combined with the harsh reality of the story itself, is kind of the perfect way to tell John's amazing story.  Having seen the film, I wonder if there could be any other way to tell it.  It perfectly captures the style of the music, while at the same time adding a certain power to John's quest for love in the film, as well as learning how to love himself.  The fantasy element allows the movie to create a wonderful way to express John's battle with his inner demons.  When he confronts the visions of various people in his life at different points throughout the film (including seeing himself at different stages of his life), it's a brilliant way to visualize his internal struggle with learning to accept himself.  Rather than giving us dragged out dialogue scenes expressing his pain, we get to see it head-on, and staged with a bit of fantasy and wonder, while not losing any of the emotional and hard-hitting impact.

Rocketman is wondrous, kind of brilliant in a way, and a well-needed shot of adrenaline that the biofilm genre has long needed.  By taking the complex life of a singer, and putting it into a musical format, it allows the screenwriters to internalize the main character more.  After all, the whole point of a musical is to express what the characters are feeling through song.  Rather than a cut and dry take on a life story, this movie creates a sense of drama and wonder that we seldom see in the movies.

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