Where do I start? Freddie Mercury was an innovator, a musical wonderment. He was a force of nature. He changed the shape and sound of his time and is still played, loved and idolized today. Unfortunately, Brian May, lead guitar for Queen, holds the rights to the biography of Freddie so we see it through a very limited viewpoint.
Let’s start with the things that almost got me leaving the theatre.
Lucy Boynton plays Mary Austin adequately. For the record, according to the real Mary herself, Mary and Freddie slept together once—twice at most. They lived together for a time but Freddie was queer. Trying to make him somehow hetero or bi-sexual is inaccurate and a form of negating his sexuality.
In the film Freddie and Mary have a physical long-term relationship with him proposing marriage. I have no idea whether or not that actually happened. It is possible for two people to be incredibly in sync, close, support and love each other without it being sexual. Film vocabulary for relationships has evolved so that we could have seen a nuanced relationship between them that was not physical but still intense and loving. What we got instead was a trite version of what their bond really was. He loved and trusted her and bought her a house right next door. Not because he was a lonely unfulfilled man as the film depicts but because he could financially take care of someone he trusted implicitly and considered his family.
Jim Hutton, Freddie’s partner of 7 years who Freddie referred to as his husband, who stayed by him till Freddie’s death, who wore his ring, feels like an afterthought in the film.
Allan Leech plays Paul Prenter, the man who became Freddie’s personal manager. Here is where we see the world through the eyes of Brian May. What could have been a nuanced depiction of quite possibly a manipulative person working on his own agenda became Snidely Whiplash a one-dimensional character, the bad guy who leads Freddie down the dark and sordid path of the queer world. Here is where I almost shouted at the screen. I am so incredibly tired of straight people gaysplaining the 70s and 80s. News flash. You haven’t got a clue. You have no idea what it is to be criminalized for whom you choose to love. Any queer man or woman from 1963 to 73 would have been very aware of the changes that happened in the Queer community in that time. In 1967 the Sexual Offences Act amended the law of England and Wales decriminalizing homosexuality. The public face of the queer community exploded. But apparently all straight folks seem to focus on is the seedy backroom world of the evil Leather scene. In this film the bar scenes looked like outtakes from Pacino’s Cruising. Yes, they were that bad. If we are to believe Brian May Freddie’s fall into the queer scene was all Paul Prenter’s fault.
The script gives Alan Leech nothing to work with. Alan, who plays Paul Prenter, is a lovely actor but he was given a poorly written sad stereotype to play. Again no realistic take on what their relationship was. Again we don’t see any kind of development of their relationship and they were lovers for a time.
In the film Freddie goes off to record his solo albums leaving the band, leaving what is referred to again and again as his family. What we see in the film is Freddie unable to make something. That’s a little hard to swallow. His two solo albums did well: Mr. Bad Guy and Barcelona. There is absolutely no mention or reference to them in the film. We know that his solo work brought him together with the Italian Opera star Montserrat Caballé. Their single did well and was the anthem for the 1992 Olympics. Also not mentioned was his work on the remastered soundtrack to Metropolis, along with many other collaborations.
The idea that Freddie was incapable of creating new work without Queen is disingenuous. It was shameful to see a depiction of Freddie as someone who could not be musically fulfilled without Queen. Instead we see Freddie as a drugged out, coked up mess, who is redeemed by getting back together with the band. His queerness is played like a self-loathing attribute and that he was really a sad figure in his private life. Really?
Queen is nothing without Freddie—end of story. Would Freddie have been as big without Queen? Hard to say, I think he would have found a way.
What I hoped for was an accurate depiction of an incredible talented and important figure in music. What I got was the same old story from a straight Hollywood viewpoint. Because he was queer, he couldn’t possibly have been happy, the den of iniquity that was the 70’s queer scene was to blame for his sexuality and ultimate death.
Yawn.
Where the film does work is in the concert scenes. Here is where they get it right.
So if you want to see some good reenactments of Queen in concert go see this, if not, give it a miss. It would do Mercury’s fans well to remember that Freddie was queer. He wasn’t sad about it or hated himself because of it. His queerness is a huge part of who he was as a music maker. Embrace it. Don’t be embarrassed by it. Grow up.