Review: Rocketman (2019)

Rocketman (2019)

Rated R for language throughout, some drug use and sexual content

Score: 4 out of 5

Sometimes, the formula just works. There is little in Rocketman that will surprise anybody who's familiar with the general blueprint obeyed by any number of rock star biopics in the last few decades, even if they knew nothing about Elton John going in beyond his music and the fact that he's gay. But none of that mattered, because I was having too damn good a time watching this to care. It's a simple movie, but it's one that doesn't shy away from the dark sides of its subject's life and has an interesting conceit to it, framing its story not as the actual history of Elton's life and career but his retelling of it to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, complete with stylistic flourish to spare. It's a visually and aurally stunning movie that had me throw on some of Elton's music as I drove home even though I don't normally listen to him, a biopic that more than did its job of getting me interested in its central figure while keeping me entertained even as it didn't particularly do much outside the ordinary.

To recount the plot would basically be the history lesson that this film does far more effectively, so I'll instead heap praise upon Taron Egerton's performance as Elton John for making that lesson so compelling. Egerton's stock in trade seems to be characters who transform radically over the course of the film; in Kingsman: The Secret Service, he played a street thug who becomes a suave superspy, and I'm not surprised that that film seems to have gotten him this role (a lot of the same people are involved in both), because here, he does a great job charting Elton's journey from a young man unsure if he can make it to a coked-up degenerate blinded by fame and fortune and back to his happily married life after he got clean. Egerton jumps right into the dark places that Elton went to in real life, the film pulling no punches with regards to what he became, how his friendship with his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin (played by Jamie Bell) frayed and recovered over the years, and how his manager/lover John Reid (a great Richard Madden giving off just the right amount of smarm) exploited him for both sex and money. I'm not really sure how historically accurate the film is, but the film, to its credit, immediately goes out of its way to disabuse you of notions that it is. Most scenes have at least some manner of stylization and artifice attached to them, the better to let you know that this is Elton John telling his story at the lowest point in his life as opposed to any sort of detached, dispassionate look at history, the fact that it is a full-fledged musical (and on that note, Egerton sang Elton's songs for real on the soundtrack, and knocked it out of the park) being only the start of it. This was the problem that a lot of people had with Bohemian Rhapsody last year, how it sold its portrait of Freddie Mercury's life as "the true story" even though many liberties were taken with the history. Rocketman, through its heightened reality, deftly dodges that problem and instead weaves it into its style, presenting a "broad strokes" version told through Elton's hazy, conflicted memories. It's a conceit that allows the film to put the focus squarely on the music and characters, acknowledging that it's not telling the whole truth and instead giving the audience a compelling reason to want to do more research on its subject: by showing us what made him an icon to begin with.

Again, if you've seen one rock star biopic, you've seen them all, and this film's breaks from the formula come more in the style and presentation than in the writing. It's a film about the rise, fall, and rise again of Elton John over the course of a career spanning several decades, and it largely sticks to the status quo in terms of its actual meat and potatoes. It's a movie where you know how it's going to end even if you don't know the first thing about Elton John's life; you know that he's eventually going to get clean and sober, find Mr. Right, and return to making and performing great music, with a post-script detailing his life after the last frame of the film proper. People don't go to see rock star biopics for in-depth history lessons; they go because they're fans of the artists in question and want an excuse to see their greatest hits performed on the big screen together with a depiction of the process of how those artists created that music. And this film, if nothing else, delivers on that promise. It may not reinvent the wheel, but it rolls like a rolling stone.

The Bottom Line

So... yeah. It's a movie with great music, a compelling presentation of a familiar story, and a great lead performance by Taron Egerton. If you're even a casual fan of Elton John, check it out.