Rocketman
09/06/19 Filed in: Cinema
Following on A Star is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody and Wild Rose, here we have another story intertwined with a musical score that adds so much more than just background sound. This is Elton's story, which wouldn't be complete without his music. A plain sort of boy from Pinner, with a talent for playing the piano, his music pulled him from obscurity to become an international superstar. But for someone with many unresolved emotional scars from childhood, and who was at the same time having to deal with his sexuality, it's not surprising that things started to go off the rails.
The story starts at the point where matters have come to a head. Elton has booked himself into rehab while still attired in a flamboyant stage costume, having walked out just minutes before he was due to perform. In rehab he sits in on a sort of AA group and begins by confessing to being an alcoholic, cocaine addict, sex addict and bulimic. One messed-up guy. As he recounts his life, we are taken to the relevant episodes, and so the story unfolds.
As a child he is seen playing the piano by ear. Arriving for an audition at the Royal Academy of Music, the woman he is there to see is playing a classical piece on the piano. She stops and asks him what music he has brought to play, but he has none. So she asks him to 'play anything', at which point he plays the piece she was playing, note perfect, but then stops. She asks why he's stopped, and he says it was because that's where she had stopped. He had just played it back from memory.
We are taken through the early days of trying to break into the music business, with a music publisher Dick James, who doesn't think much of Elton's music. But Dick's assistant, Ray Williams, is more astute, and introduces Elton to Bernie Taupin, who of course was to become the lyricist to Elton's musical compositions. Or, to be more accurate, Bernie produced the lyrics, and Elton added the musical score, a synergy made in heaven.
Dick James is eventually won over by the composition Your Song, so much so that he arranges a gig at the Troubadour in LA. To say it went down a storm is an understatement, and the legend was launched. With the money rolling in, Elton falls for the charms of John Reid, who approached him after the Troubadour performance. A good looking music manager, Reid not only becomes Elton's romantic partner, but eventually muscles out Dick James, and sadly Ray Williams, who as Elton says, was a good guy.
With more money than he knows what to do with Elton becomes more and more extreme, with a fantastical stage persona and an appetite for everything that isn't good for him. A brief marriage to Renate Blauel, a woman who shows him some empathy, followed by an acrimonious parting from John Reid, plunges Elton into despair. And so we're back to where he walked out, leaving Reid with a theatre full of fans and no performer. Instant Karma.
Of course we all know that that wasn't the end of Elton. Finally shedding the spectre of his parents, and having ditched Reid, he rebuilds his life, and as he says, in music of course, I'm Still Standing.
No doubt, as with all biopics, this one probably bends reality a bit. But it certainly pulls no punches in respect of Elton's seamier side. And Taron Egerton is really superb as Elton and deserves some recognition when the awards season comes around.
We are taken through the early days of trying to break into the music business, with a music publisher Dick James, who doesn't think much of Elton's music. But Dick's assistant, Ray Williams, is more astute, and introduces Elton to Bernie Taupin, who of course was to become the lyricist to Elton's musical compositions. Or, to be more accurate, Bernie produced the lyrics, and Elton added the musical score, a synergy made in heaven.
Dick James is eventually won over by the composition Your Song, so much so that he arranges a gig at the Troubadour in LA. To say it went down a storm is an understatement, and the legend was launched. With the money rolling in, Elton falls for the charms of John Reid, who approached him after the Troubadour performance. A good looking music manager, Reid not only becomes Elton's romantic partner, but eventually muscles out Dick James, and sadly Ray Williams, who as Elton says, was a good guy.
With more money than he knows what to do with Elton becomes more and more extreme, with a fantastical stage persona and an appetite for everything that isn't good for him. A brief marriage to Renate Blauel, a woman who shows him some empathy, followed by an acrimonious parting from John Reid, plunges Elton into despair. And so we're back to where he walked out, leaving Reid with a theatre full of fans and no performer. Instant Karma.
Of course we all know that that wasn't the end of Elton. Finally shedding the spectre of his parents, and having ditched Reid, he rebuilds his life, and as he says, in music of course, I'm Still Standing.
No doubt, as with all biopics, this one probably bends reality a bit. But it certainly pulls no punches in respect of Elton's seamier side. And Taron Egerton is really superb as Elton and deserves some recognition when the awards season comes around.