Problem with biographical films of Singers'

Making a successful biographical film is quite a challenge. Telling the entire course of someone's life, in 2h and 30 mins are nearly impossible. Having taken “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Rocketman”, and “Elvis”, the film directed by Buz Lurhmann is the closest to telling the entire history of Elvis Presley, from the perspective of his manager, Colonel Parker, played by Tom Hanks. Often the trouble is the actor or actress chosen to play such well-known figures. Yet, the casting is phenomenal in the case of all three, Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, Taron Egerton as Elton John, and Austin Butler as Elvis Presley.

The main problem is taking too much story in one single film, focusing on too many aspects, where each gets a few minutes, creates a feeling of unconcern as the theme is not explained and developed to the great extent. Even in the case of “Elvis”, the story seems to be told so fast, with fast editing and style of Buz Lurhmann, that we get a little bit of everything.

Moving on, each of the film focus on one simple relationship, the bad manager behind the artist. When that takes the front floor, we get less of the singer that we went to see the film for. In each case, the music, and how they handle the challenge of playing such historical figures are great. Especially Austin Butler, who is incredibly charismatic and wonderful while playing Elvis.

To sum up, the main problem is the lack of time to show everything, on the other hand, when showing everything there is too little time to care about certain motifs that are being explored. Those are inevitable problems that do not necessarily result in the reception of the film. At the end of the day, preferences and music tastes play a role in ranking those films.

1)“Rocketman”, was dynamic when it had to be, it was slow when it had to be, and the film had a soul, colors, and great songs that Taron Egerton sang by himself. Clearly, there was a plan for a film.

2)“Elvis”, was a mess, but I still enjoyed it. Even though so many things were happening, and edited, so that Elvis's whole life would stick in one film was quite a challenge, but again, it had a soul, the one thing that the last one missed.

3)“Bohemian Rhapsody”, although my favorite band, the film was not focused on anything in particular. The music was great, but that is not enough.