There were a few things that Freddie Mercury didn’t want the world to know: that he, for instance, wasn’t born as Freddie Mercury. His parents, Parsis from the Bombay presidency, named him Farrokh. For the first 25 years of his life, Mercury was Farrokh Bulsara.
He was only attracted to men — a fact he hid from himself, so that it could be hidden from the world. His father disapproved of his views, lifestyle, and ambition; Farrokh was never good enough. Home, a default cocoon for most, felt like prison to him, a place where he “never belonged”.
Bohemian Rhapsody, starring Rami Malek as the British singer-songwriter, opens in 1970s London, where Farrokh formed the band Queen, changed his name, and left his house to find a home. This is a potent premise, which has enough elements for a riveting movie: a great hook, a poignant story and, obviously, memorable music.
But filmmaker Bryan Singer approaches this material with strange disinterest. The initial portion of the movie detailing the significant events in Mercury’s life — his first stage appearance, Queen’s debut album, his dizzying brush with fame — are dealt with quickly and cursorily, as if all these were a given. Mercury was a baggage handler at the Heathrow airport before becoming a rockstar. The new money and stardom must have affected him profoundly, but the film is indifferent to these events, perfunctorily ticking them off like items in a to-do list. As a result, Mercury is opaque and the film inaccessible.
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In fact, this sense of detachment, caused by hurried cutting and static writing, persists till the first half. There’s enough scope for drama — Queen’s first US tour; Mercury proposing marriage to his girlfriend, Mary Austin, played by Lucy Boynton; the disagreements among the band members — that could have given this film energy and whimsicality – traits synonymous with a Mercury performance; instead, Bohemian Rhapsody seems content in accumulating information without interrogating its origins or effects.
It isn’t Malek’s fault, though, who plays Mercury with the right mix of hesitance and flamboyance — a man committing mistakes with the rashness of a teenager, as part of the boy is yet to become a man. Boynton plays Mary, a reservoir of patience and calm, with reassuring nuance, someone who knows Mercury more than he knows himself. And it is this relationship that lifts Bohemian Rhapsody from the abyss of forgettable generalities.
Freddie Mercury and Mary Austin played by Rami Malek and Lucy Boynton respectively. Credit: 20th Century Fox
Mercury and Mary dated for a few years but didn’t marry, for he came to terms with his sexual orientation. They still kept in touch and continued to meet. Their bond — transcending the straightjacketed notions of romantic and sexual relationship — reveals latent facets of Mercury: his aching desire for companionship, his hunger for acceptance, his searching questions about his identity – who he never was and who he was “born to be”.
Even the filmmaking is considerably better here — to the extent that it looks, and feels, like a different movie. Choppy scenes are replaced with ones that have a life-like rhythm, and diffidence gives way to candour, as Singer examines Mercury’s personal life, excavating old grievances and giving them much-needed closure.
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It is also evident in the way he directs Queen’s last live performance in the movie – Live Aid at Wembley Stadium. Prior to this, all shows of the band, including the electric and collaborative ‘We Will Rock You’, seemed lacklustre, as they relied on rapid cuts and awkward camera angles, divorcing the band from its audience.
But the Live Aid performance screams a different language. Here the camera is alive and energetic, capturing and conveying the madness Queen inspired. When Mercury is playing the piano, the camera first shoots him in close-up and then circles around him. A few shots later it glides through his leg to reach the bass guitarist John Deacon, played by Joseph Mazzello. It soon dives deep into the crowd, a sea of one lakh Londoners losing their minds and voice.
It then frames Mercury against the sky — as if this world has space for only one man — and keeps going back to the audience, consuming and receiving their energy. You feel like you were there. You understand what great can do: demand complete submission.
On that afternoon in Wembley, no one was an atheist. It’s too bad that the rest of the film doesn’t do justice to the man behind the god.