Rocketman (2019)

I've been listening to Elton John a lot lately, no doubt under the influence of ads for this. To me, even his more obscure songs are never worse than decent. The bio would have to be quite a bomb to keep me away. My folks came too.

The film begins with the artist (played in adulthood by Taron Egerton), in one of his wildest costumes, crashing a session of what might be Alcoholics Anonymous and announcing quite a few addictions and other behavioral problems. At the host's prompting, he starts telling his life story. From there, we mostly get unnarrated flashbacks, starting when he was five-year-old Reggie Dwight.

So far, I haven't found significant ways that the story herein is known to deviate from fact, in contrast with same director Dexter Fletcher's Bohemian Rhapsody. This might have something to do with the real Elton being executive producer, tho he did tell Egerton not to copy him too closely (not that I see a big difference). OTOH, it does have a more fanciful presentation, sometimes veering into jukebox musical territory. Many numbers -- generally played in full -- are not performed on stage or in a recording studio but sung by characters wherever they happen to be, often with improbable or impossible things going on. I wouldn't be surprised if writer Lee Hall, who also did Billy Elliott, hopes for a stage adaptation.

In some ways, I kinda hope it does deviate from fact, if only by virtue of telling Elton's side of the story alone. It looks like his life has been full of despicable acquaintances. Both his parents, especially his father, are cold to him, leaving his grandma to provide the primary warmth. Music producer Dick James rudely dismisses most of his efforts. Manager and part-time boyfriend John Reid (my reason for saying "Elton" rather than "John") appears worst of all, both heartless and shameless in his pursuit of money and power, appalling more than just Elton.

It's easy to feel sorry for Elton, who shows too little self-esteem to qualify as a diva. This is not to say that none of his suffering is his own fault. In addition to overdoing the decadent lifestyle, he can end up lashing out at people who didn't ask for it, such as collaborating songwriter Bernie Taupin. He still seems like less of a jerk than most musicians at the center of biopics.

As I'd been warned, there is an R rating for depiction of drugs, profanity, and sex, particularly man-on-man. Thankfully, it's not the high end of R; we don't see any private parts, and what we have mainly serves to give us a fairly accurate idea of Elton's life. It couldn't all be the glitz he normally puts on camera.

The deliberately silly, fun parts do nothing to lessen the emotional impact of the serious aspects. That's a big plus in my book. Unless you won't tolerate a bit of grit mixed with whimsy or you have no use for Elton's songs, I recommend checking RM out.

ADDENDUM: There are a few discrepancies between what Elton tells the support group (erring on the positive) and what we see in the flashbacks. In this one regard, it resembles a mockumentary.