Review: ROCKETMAN

A good biopic can interest you in the life of someone for whom you harbour little interest. An even better biopic dispenses with the approach that quilts a series of great moments from history. That last one is virtually non-existant but some get close. Amadeus works by letting you know that the biography it promises is contained in the confession of a madman and plays to myth instead of history. Dexter Fletcher's recent save job on Bohemian Rhapsody pulled back on the mighty moments of biography to push forward mighty moments of the film that it was. And here he is again and he has gone one better.

Rocketman begins with Elton John as a character in a stage outfit of a stylised Satan coming offstage and into a therapy session for addicts. He begins his life's confession, challenged by the therapist, and almost immediately weaves dialogue with song which then transports to a thrilling dance number. Then back to the group circle. That is the structure of the rest of the film. But that's a good thing.

It's good because we know straight away that we are in for a broadened perspective, narrative sleight of hand, dialogue that, sung not spoken, can serve variously as private thoughts or open declarations, timeline flexibility (songs are chosen for thematic relevance not chronology) and the host of other acceptable liberties that a musical can offer that is largely forbidden to the straight drama. This is primarily a musical and works best as an exploration of the themes of its subject. It almost entirely works that way.

Fletcher uses a shifting pallet that takes from the monochrome of Post War Britain to the brown of film of the '70s, through the neon of the '80s and so on. This is very fleet but it has to be as it needs to keep up with some rapidly shapeshifting musical arrangements which can go from the cast singing lines as ensembles, Taron Egerton as Elton partly voicing and partly miming the real Elton's vocals as the orchestration morphs from rock to the Thousand Strings of Cinema. And while we're having fun just with that Fletcher gives us a host of wow moments. The young Reg Dwight imagines himself conducting an orchestra from his bed who are lighted by his pen torch. As we cut between the players and Reggie his costume goes from pyjamas to something like a tuxedo. The gig at the L.A. Troubadour features a moment so spectacular I can't spoil it here. The pool scene for the title song might well leave you breathless. Between these moments (and there are more) we are shown some historical pinpoints but, with everything else on screen and the genuine drama of identity and forgiveness at the centre, they feel a little tokenistic.

Oh, I'll just single this out: there's a sequence in which Elton John is on stage playing Pinball Wizard,  the song he acted and sang in Ken Russell's film of Tommy. The camera circles around the star and his grand piano as he changes costume with every rotation. This is clever as Rocketman bears more than a little resemblance to Tommy. It's also clever as the song is about winning via extraordinary means. So, it's a take on an earlier film using a song that was a cover version. But the best thing about all of this is that you simply don't have to know or care about any of it. If you're letting go of the thrill of this thrilling film you have gone into the wrong cinema.

Taron Egerton as Elton John gives us a Protean figure whose person and persona are constantly in combat as the riches and the fame take the ironic vampiric toll that has killed many and driven more into ruin. Early scenes are perhaps a tad theatrical as the actor shows us how he found the look of his role. It's a smile. His teeth are given a central gap like his character but we don't just see this. We see a smile and it's strange at first. Why? because it looks like someone whose smile normally bends the lower lip bending the upper lip. Try it (the reverse of the way you normally do it) and see how difficult it is. Then go and look at Elton John smiling. He smiles in the opposite direction. The weird thing is that when Egerton does it he instantly looks like Elton John. Egerton is made up to look as much like his subject as you'd want but it's this and a lot of work around the mouth that gives us a continual sign of conflict and vulnerability. Ok, that's just his mouth. His performance outside of this detail is assured and characterful and feels less like the impersonation that was Ramy Malek's Freddie Mercury (but that was a very different movie).

I think that might be my point, here. Fletcher's insistence on the music's central placement and the plot and themes starring out from it allows all three elements to fill a screen and auditorium with big cinema. This is a joyous experience that, if you do the right thing by yourself and see it at a cinema, will only reward. If you see it and start listing biographical inaccuracies you might ask yourself why you went in the first place. Meet this halfway and it will do the rest. Bloody wonderful!