Rocketman (5 Stars)

When I first heard about this film I groaned. It seemed like a cheap attempt to cash in on the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody". Maybe that was the intention, but I needn't have worried. I might prefer Freddie Mercury's music, but "Rocketman" is the better film.

The film begins with Elton John visiting an AA meeting while wearing a costume that he had just worn on stage. He confesses to being an alcoholic, apart from being addicted to cocaine and various other substances. I wasn't making notes, sorry. He sits and tells his life story to the assembled group, who seem surprisingly unfazed about having a millionaire rock star among them. This is when the film began to amaze me.

As a child he was a musical prodigy, but his father had no time for him. His mother was partially supportive, but the biggest support came from his grandmother. He began playing songs in a pub, before making a record deal with the unsympathetic music publisher Dick James, in whose office he was introduced to his long time friend and collaborator Bernie Taupin.

I was already acquainted with Elton John's career in the 1970's, but Bernie Taupin was a puzzle to me. I knew his name, and I knew he wrote songs for Elton, but he was a secretive person who remained in the background. The film doesn't clear up everything. We don't find out anything about Bernie's background. He's always in Elton's shadow, but he's a good friend who never stays away long.

Elton's career skyrockets, but his fame overwhelms him. He turns to drugs and alcohol, the curses of the celebrity lifestyle. His strength is that however depressed he might be in the dressing room, he can rush onto the stage and play the clown for the appreciative audience. Nobody saw his heartbreaks. He hid them too well.

A problem in his life was his emerging sexuality, or rather the emerging awareness of his sexuality. He was a homosexual in an age when homosexuality was unacceptable. He couldn't be open about it, he had to keep it secret to remain popular with his fans. Maybe he should have trusted them. Maybe they would have accepted him as a homosexual, even in the 1970's. I don't know. I remember there were rumours about him being bisexual. I didn't care one way or the other.

I've always liked Taron Egerton as an actor, but in "Rocketman" he's dazzling. He's a much better singer than I would have expected. I'm also impressed by the singing of the young actors who play Elton John as a child.

The film's musical numbers are breathtaking. One criticism I've read of the film is that the songs are out of order. To take one example, he's shown singing "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" in the early 1960's, even though it wasn't written until ten years later. That's not something that bothers me. The songs are inserted into the film wherever they're relevant to the plot.

I'm sad to hear that "Rocketman" has been censored in Russian cinemas. About 15 minutes of the film have been removed, including all references to homosexuality. This is supposedly to make the film compliant with Russian law. In Russia homosexuality isn't illegal, but homosexual propaganda is illegal. What that means is that it's okay to be gay as long as you don't tell anyone about it.

This is a tragedy for true film fans, because the references to homosexuality are essential to the plot. I fear that my Russian friends who read my blog might have difficulty understanding the film. However, they're facing even bigger problems in the near future. Vladimir Putin is considering detaching Russia from the world's Internet. This would effectively make Russia one big intranet, and it wouldn't be possible for Russians to access any websites outside of Russia.The reason for this is allegedly to protect Russians from fake news, but the truth is that Putin doesn't want Russians to find out what's really happening. For instance, in Russian media it's claimed that the majority of Crimeans voted to become part of Russia, but if they read foreign news sites they'll find out that the results were faked and less than 5% of the population supported the annexation.

Russia is an absolute dictatorship. The freedom of the Internet is a challenge to any dictatorship. Foreign news sites, and all other sites, have to be blocked to prevent the Russian people being informed. Unfortunately, that means Russians will be unable to read my blog. I'm sorry. All I can do is recommend that you read it every day while you still can.