Genius Review (Spoilers) : Bohemian Rhapsody — Don’t Make Me Your Cautionary Tale
Why do we chase the thing from which we run?
Real music fans can shake their heads, but Queen is fairly new to me. It’s only recently that I fell in love with the four-octave range afforded to Freddie Mercury, due as he put it, to his extra incisors. If my iPhone were anything like my childhood cassettes, Don’t Stop Me Now would be playing funny from over usage. The tape can only take so much.
Even less did I know about Freddie himself, lead singer of the quartet who famously ushers in both the pregame (We Will Rock You) and postgame (We are the Champions) rituals of every championship sporting event since their arrival. Knowing only of his death, I stepped into the theatre assuming a handful of rousing choruses with a penultimate performance leading directly into a tearful death. We’d all leave the showing a little sadder.
That is not what I experienced.
What I saw was a man who embraced his destruction and determined that his demise wouldn’t be his defining destiny.
(EDITING NOTE: I realize that the film took license with the storyline and I comment below strictly on what was in the film.)
Freddie Mercury grew up in a Parsi home, a son of practicing Zoroastrians. Freddie never felt accepted. He never felt loved. He never felt like he fit in. We’ve heard this story a thousand times. Rather than sink into anonymity or seek the spotlight to retaliate or commiserate, Freddie sang as a gift. When asked what made Queen different, he replied,
“Tell you what it is, Mr. Reid. Now we’re four misfits who don’t belong together, we’re playing for the other misfits. They’re the outcasts, right at the back of the room. We’re pretty sure they don’t belong either. We belong to them.”
No, this wasn’t rebellion music. This was community music. This was no precursor to the outcast bands that separated from society. They wanted to celebrate family. They wanted everyone to fit in. At their Live Aid Concert performance, Freddie told the crowd that the next song was for all the beautiful people in the audience.
“That’s all of you.”
If you ever find something, a hobby, career or person that you treat the way Freddie treated music, you found your thing. Run to it and never let go. You go look at something the way Freddie Mercury looked at his music.
Freddie craved community and feared loneliness. But as is common to man, Freddie chased the thing he feared. His earliest isolation comes against his father. He tells him he’s changed his name. He won’t identify with the family he has.
Finding the love of his life, Mercury fell hard for Mary, a supportive encouraging mate. In one scene, Mary swells with excitement as Freddie and band embrace in joy over news of an American tour. She thrives on the success of someone else because true love is the goodwill of another.
The thing I hate the most, I do.
But Mercury again pulls away from family. He seeks loneliness and anonymity in one night stands with those who only care enough to pleasure in his celebrity. Eventually he loses Mary, settling for a relationship with Paul, a man who draws him away from his brothers in the band. Paul drives a wedge between Queen and their lead singer. He appeals to Freddie’s desire to succeed rather than his desire to have community. Paul secures Freddie a solo deal earning 4 million dollars and Mercury shouts to his family that they are nothing without him. He is Queen. They need him.
An early warning, most bands don’t fail; they break up, comes true. Freddie is captive to Paul who lies to band members and managers, hides Freddie from opportunities to do what he loves, and isolates him further from family. Paul escorts Mercury on a drug and sex fueled search for something that he already had. Paul uses and accuses Mercury. He warns him about leaving him. He has pictures. He knows the real Freddie Mercury.
He’s the great accuser.
But Mary, full of grace and mercy, seeks out Freddie and in the rain confronts him. She calls out his failure. Calls him home. Calls him to his family.
It’s not you, it’s me
In the rain, Freddie Mercury has the scales fall from his eyes, the water washing away his blindness. He doesn’t even look at Paul who is calling him back. You’re done, he says. You’re the fruit fly that hovers over the rotting fruit. There’s nothing left. I’m completely rotten. I did it. I’ve caused this.
And Freddie Mercury walks away to find his family.
I’m not worthy
When he finds them, there is only confession. No excuses. No finger pointing. Confession, and a request that the prodigal son be allowed to come home.
But can Queen be a band again?
We can be. We believe in each other… that’s everything. We are going to do great things. It’s an experience — love, tragedy, joy… it’s something that people will feel belongs to them.
Get him a ring and a robe. Celebrate!
The brothers receive him back into their community. They’ll split everything four ways. Songs are only credited to Queen and no one person. Freddie’s only mission now is the mission of Live Aid; to perform to the benefit of other people.
It’s only now that Freddie tells the band that he’s been infected with AIDS, but before they can weep, he stops them.
I won’t be a cautionary tale. I can be whatever I decide to be.
What you’re seeing in both the movie and in the real video of Queen’s performance at Wembley Stadium in 1985, is four people who knew of their brother’s impending death, who played their hearts out with passion and joy because they were family, and so were the people in the audience.
At Freddie’s end, he was able to embrace both his father and his father’s values. Good thoughts. Good words. Good deeds.
If you’re Freddie, listen to your Mary. If you’re Mary, find your Freddie.
Rami Malek nailed Freddie Mercury. Hopefully he wins an Oscar. If there’s anything that he took from his character and delivered to the screen was a certain old proverb.
