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MOVIES
A glitter-fueled
Rocketman
blasts off
By Stephanie Zacharek
hen you Think abouT iT, The
rock-’n’-roll biopic is about as
un–rock ’n’ roll as you can get,
W the ultimate in dancing about
architecture. You sit through the whole thing,
watching a rock star’s life unfold before you.
How can that compare to the thrill of standing
in a sweaty pit in the presence of a magnificent
human being who calls out to us, one by one
and all together, inspiring joy and lust and a zil-
lion other feelings that we haven’t yet invented words for?
Who wants to sit down and watch a movie about an art
form that makes you wanna shout?
But rock biopics, done right, can jump the synapse
between how movies work on us and how music moves
us. Rocketman—the story of shy Reginald Dwight from
North London, who would become showman and
songman extra ordinaire Elton John—sparks that duotone
euphoria. Directed by Dexter Fletcher and starring
Taron Egerton as the spangled one himself, Rocketman is
magnificent and ridiculous, a feathered mélange of clichés
and originality, of respectful homage and unrepentant
nostalgia. Sometimes it’s comfortingly conventional;
other times it’s gloriously off the charts. Even when it
doesn’t quite work, it’s just so alive, meeting right at the
intersection of the human heartbeat and the also-human
love for shiny things.
Even people who profess not to love Elton John find
they can’t resist him, and they certainly can’t avoid him:
among a string of hits spread throughout a career of nearly
50 years, John’s 1970 “Your Song” is a universal anthem of
intimacy, a song that just about everybody knows. “I hope
you don’t mind that I put down in words/ How wonderful
life is while you’re in the world.” Who among us wouldn’t
want to be thought of that way by another human being?
Or who hasn’t felt that way about someone else, a per-
son whose presence is as precious as the gift of daylight?
Rocketman is essentially a movie version of “Your Song,”
dedicated to the man who wrote the song itself, a jukebox
musical with so much ardent affection poured into it—by
the filmmakers and by the actors—that it feels like a love
ballad. The picture was, it should be noted, executive-
produced by John, so there’s some vanity involved here—
but if Elton John can’t be allowed to love himself, what
hope is left for this monstrous world? As for movie goers,
I’m sure it’s possible to dislike Rocketman: there’s no
avoiding the “Rainbows are overrated, don’t you think?”
brigade. But resisting Rocketman would expend more en-
ergy than it’s worth. If you’re certain you’re going to hate
82 Time June 3–10, 2019
△ it, just don’t go—and leave the pleasure
John in the rock to the rest of us.
opera Tommy
in 1975 Our first visiOn of Egerton as John is
a blast of glory: dressed in a winged red
devil costume lush with plumage, a pair
of curly rams’ horns sprouting from the
red satin caplet that hugs his head, he
pushes through a set of doors that pre-
sumably lead to a stage. But he’s actu-
ally headed to a group- therapy session,
where he plunks himself down, costume
and all, and begins the story of his life,
accompanied by a litany of his prob-
lems. This is Elton John circa the late
1980s, and here’s what he’s up against:
He may be one of the world’s richest and
most successful rock stars, but he’s also
an alcoholic, a cokehead and a bulimic.
He’s addicted to sex, and he has an
anger- management problem. He loves
prescription painkillers, and he can’t
stop shopping. He’s alternately agitated
and demonically animated as he rattles
off his list of flaws and vexations. The
ordinary people seated around him in a
circle want to help, and they begin ask-
ing questions, beginning with the big
one: What was his childhood like?
From there, Rocketman takes off
like a shot, illustrating each major epi- PREVIOUS PAGE: DAVID APPLEBY— PARAMOUNT PICTURES; THIS PAGE: GET T Y IMAGES
sode in John’s life with lavish produc-
tion numbers. Fletcher prefers the op-
eratic approach over restraint, and his
instincts pay off. The real Elton John
is now in his 70s, married and semi-
retired from touring as he raises his
young family; he has been sober for
nearly 30 years. The Elton John of