Freddie Mercury had a complicated career, so perhaps things had to go wrong when filming his story. That "Bohemian Rhapsody" is now in the cinemas, is a small miracle. It took ten years to realize this film about the British rock band Queen and her extravagant singer. The result is a compromise: it shows rock'n'roll history, but it does not rock.

This is how it happened: In 2008, British screenwriter Peter Morgan ("The Queen") submitted a treatment to producer Graham King, who then secured the rights to Freddie Mercury's story. Even then, it was clear that guitarist Brian May and Roger Taylor, Grail Keepers of the Queen's heritage, would assist production as consultants. Later, when a script by Anthony McCarten ("Darkest Hour") was available, the musicians not only made for detail, they also allegedly vetoed when it said that Brachial comedian Sacha Baron Cohen should embody Mercury.

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"Bohemian Rhapsody": The show must go on ...

The "borate" junk, it is said, wanted to go deep into the abysses of sexual lust, orgies and allure that made Mercury appear so wicked and fascinating during his lifetime. He wanted it lustful, slippery and horny, so: appropriate. May and Taylor, however, were more interested in friendly icon care than ruthless authenticity, and besides, like producer King, they probably wanted to avoid age restrictions on the film because of explicit depictions. "Bohemian Rhapsody" got a release in Germany from the age of six, and accordingly he presents himself: lewd and lighthearted like a generic musician biopic that runs on TV on Sunday afternoons. It lacks the lasciviousness of genre predecessors such as "Velvet Goldmine", the intimacy of "Walk The Line" or the psychological depth of "Love & Mercy".

This is not the fault of the lead actor, who was allowed to transform after years of back and forth in Mercury. Rami Malek became known as the scared "Mr. Robot" in the eponymous TV series; With similarly gentle intensity, he now also plays the singer, who died in 1991 - from his shy beginnings as Farrokh Bulsara, a son of Indian immigrants with violent overbite and 70's poodle mane, to rock star leatherman with porno mustache. Sensitive portrayed Malek Mercury as a highly talented free spirit who gives off the stage sensitive and charming - and exploded on stage to magnificent flamboyance.

When the film finally arrives where it starts, at the 1986 band's appearance at the London Wembley Stadium Live Aid Festival, and Malek throws himself into the legendary Greatest Hits show with convincing physique, he's got it long accepted as Mercury. His first, yet extremely challenging movie starring role is a triumph for the young US actor.

Bohemian Rhapsody
UK / USA 2018

Director: Bryan Singer
Screenplay: Antony McCarten, Peter Morgan
Performers: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Mike Myers
Production: GK Films, New Regency Pictures, Queen Films Ltd. among others
Distribution: 20th Century Fox
Length: 134 minutes
FSK: from 6
Start: 2. November 2018

This excites all the more, because the film was lost shortly before filming director Bryan Singer ("X-Men"): He pretended to have to worry about a bereavement in the family and just did not show up again. Meanwhile, Singer is accused of sexual abuse on previous film sets. Dexter Fletcher ("Rocketman") then finished the collapsing spin with a sure hand.

To be successful, "Bohemian Rhapsody" has to score points, especially among fans and mass audiences, and that could even work. You get to see effectively re-staged live performances of hits like "We Will Rock You". This is illustrated in contemporary colors and costumes, as Mercury (Malek) falls in love with the fashion saleswoman Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), but soon, on tour, while rendezvous on the trucker toilet, he finds that he is for a heterosexual married life not good.

Mercury's wrestling and coquetting with his bisexual or homosexuality in the 1970s, his love-hate relationship with lover / assistant and movie grower Paul Prenter (Allen Leech), the knowledge that he was infected with HIV, the tension in the band - all this saves the movie is not out. But he does not dare to go into radicalism, into the tragically excessive nature of this rock'n'roll fate.

In the video: The trailer for "Bohemian Rhapsody"

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20th Century Fox

Controversial as the fiercely controversial Queen performances in South Africa's Sun City shortly before Live Aid, does not even happen. And Mercury's existentially desperate drug and drunk years at the beginning of the eighties in Munich clenched to soapy casualness. The actress Barbara Valentin, with whom he had an affair at the time, once told how Mercury once stood naked on the balcony of an apartment and sang "We Are The Champions". Some Bavarian construction workers down the street, he allegedly called: "Whoever has the biggest tail, should come up!". If you would have liked to see the scene. He lived for sex, Mercury said shortly before his death. But this movie does not have sex.