Post by kathryn on Oct 11, 2019 11:01:18 GMT
Yes, I am still in love with this film, and hope it gets some recognition come award season.
Agree totally with Dexter Fletcher having made a film that is deliberately using Elton John as a lens through which to tell a more broadly-relatable tale about learning to love yourself.
As Elton's biography comes out and we start to get more of the literal story, you can see exactly where Lee Hall and Dexter Fletcher have tweaked reality to make wider points. My favourite being Elton coming out to his mother. It seems that Sheila didn't actually have a problem with Elton's sexuality (though she *did* have a problem with his marriage, because it meant she was losing her grip on him) but that scene - with her sat watching Liberace! - is a brilliantly nuanced articulation of the broader public attitudes towards gay people at the time (and indeed, that still exist now among many - there's a reason why Bohemian Rhapsody was so coy about Freddie Mercury's relationships with men). It wasn't outright rejection of anyone who was gay, it was a distaste of homosexuality being acknowledged publicly, a desire to pretend it didn't really exist, and when forced to acknowledge that it does a belief that it was a choice, and a choice could only lead to loneliness and unhappiness. I've never seen a better expression of why 'I don't care' is not a benign statement when someone comes out.
Agree totally with Dexter Fletcher having made a film that is deliberately using Elton John as a lens through which to tell a more broadly-relatable tale about learning to love yourself.
As Elton's biography comes out and we start to get more of the literal story, you can see exactly where Lee Hall and Dexter Fletcher have tweaked reality to make wider points. My favourite being Elton coming out to his mother. It seems that Sheila didn't actually have a problem with Elton's sexuality (though she *did* have a problem with his marriage, because it meant she was losing her grip on him) but that scene - with her sat watching Liberace! - is a brilliantly nuanced articulation of the broader public attitudes towards gay people at the time (and indeed, that still exist now among many - there's a reason why Bohemian Rhapsody was so coy about Freddie Mercury's relationships with men). It wasn't outright rejection of anyone who was gay, it was a distaste of homosexuality being acknowledged publicly, a desire to pretend it didn't really exist, and when forced to acknowledge that it does a belief that it was a choice, and a choice could only lead to loneliness and unhappiness. I've never seen a better expression of why 'I don't care' is not a benign statement when someone comes out.
