Rocketman

Release Date: May 31, 2019
Runtime: 121 minutes
Rating: R
Studio: Paramount
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Cast: Taron Egerton; Jamie Bell; Richard Madden; Bryce Dallas Howard; Gemma Jones; Steven Mackintosh; Tate Donovan; Matthew Illesley;

Rocketman is an exuberant and immensely enjoyable musical biopic of Elton John containing a star-making performance from Taron Egerton as the reluctantly flamboyant musician.

Dexter Fletcher’s Rocketman will inevitably draw comparisons to last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody (which won an Oscar for star Rami Malek as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury), but the John biopic is a better movie. While Rhapsody had some exciting sequences (the final Live Aid performance being a clear showstopper and tour de force for Malek), Rocketman straightaway assumes the form and structure of a more traditional theatrical musical one might see on the Broadway stage (and one would be naïve not to think that a Broadway adaptation isn’t in the works already). Director Fletcher demonstrates an obvious flair for staging musical numbers; an early standout involving young Elton (true find Matthew Illesley), his emotionally absent father (Steven Mackintosh), indifferent tart of a mother (an excellent Bryce Dallas Howard), and loving, supportive grandmother (Gemma Jones). Dexter presents this sequence as separate internal monologues as the characters meander through the motions of a stable home life and it musicalizes and underscores the relationships between the family members beautifully. Not long afterwards, Fletcher kicks the movie into high gear with a smashing (literally, including windows) rendition of John’s classic “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” which introduces the audience to Taron Egerton as the adult Elton (John was born Reginald Dwight and changed his name to something more rock star-ish). Several stupendous musical sequences follow, including John’s first public performance at LA’s Troubador club (“Crocodile Rock”) and the title tune performed underwater after a now mega-famous (and mega-wasted) John collapses into the pool at his LA mansion. In a manner befitting its subject, Fletcher illustrates John’s euphoric highs and debilitating lows by creative, dramatic, and showy applications of John’s sweeping catalogue of classic songs (many written by lyricist Bernie Taupin, played by an all grown up and hunky-as-hell, Jamie Bell).

As an additional point of comparison, Rocketman treats its subject with more narrative cohesion than the Queen movie. Perhaps that’s a function of size: Elton John is a soloist; Freddie Mercury is the lead singer of a group. One gripe that I had with last year’s film that is a non-issue with Rocketman is that it couldn’t quite decide whether to tell the story of Freddie Mercury or Queen and as a result, told neither particularly well. Rocketman doesn’t have to address this issue and consequently the movie is more interesting. Although an enormously stylish film, Fletcher and screenwriter Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) personalize the inevitable rock-star tropes (broken home, booze, sex, drugs, etc.) with care and dignity. The gay subject matter (which, annoyingly, created some controversy prior to the film’s release but is very much more integrated into the story than in Bohemian Rhapsody) is in there, but Elton John is an out-and-proud gay icon (married for many years to David Furnish, one of the film’s producers) and it’s 2019, so get over it.

Egerton certainly possesses a notable physical resemblance to John and can sing and dance well enough as to not cause a disruption in one’s enjoyment of the movie. Even if at times, his acting teeters on the border of “ah-cting,” he nonetheless manages to hold the screen and our attention with his energy and enthusiasm for the (thankfully standard) entire two-hour running time (I kept thinking that this is a role that Justin Timberlake might have had ten years ago). Richard Madden (Game of Thrones) as manager/lover John Reid makes for a suitably smarmy villain and Bell is a standout as John’s brother-in-arms in one of the most affecting bromances in screen (and real) history.

Rocketman is a must-see not simply for fans of Elton John or his music, but for those who enjoy the art form that is the musical film. And while we may not learn any more about Elton John than we didn’t already know or can glean elsewhere on the Internet, this film moves us through his life and times with grace, flash, and respect. This is the best musical film since Chicago.