George Michael: Free­dom – first look review

The con­cept of the visu­al album is not a new one, with the likes of Bey­on­cé and Janelle Monáe both con­tribut­ing to the genre in recent of years. But George Michael: Free­dom is per­haps the first visu­al album in the ​‘Best Of’ cat­e­go­ry. Billed as a doc­u­men­tary, it’s more like a com­pi­la­tion of great­est hits with spo­ken sleeve notes and archive footage from Michael’s three-decade career. Span­ning his rise to fame with Wham! in the 1980s through to his untime­ly death in 2016, the film com­pris­es con­cert mate­r­i­al, news reports, inter­views and home movie footage.

How­ev­er, if you’re look­ing for a warts-and-all exposé in the vein of Asif Kapadia’s Amy, you won’t find it here. Co-direct­ed by David Austin and Michael him­self, the film keeps the music front and cen­tre. There is no new footage of the star aside from some brief glimpses of him in pro­file at a type­writer, and for the most part his nar­ra­tion focus­es on the per­son­al and polit­i­cal events that shaped his musi­cal career.

The Kate Moss intro­duc­tion is a lit­tle over-baked, and at times the more vac­u­ous celebri­ty endorse­ments feel like they get in the way of Michael’s sto­ry and voice. It’s clear that even in mak­ing a film about him­self, he pre­ferred to let oth­er peo­ple do the talk­ing and retain his pri­va­cy. While there’s a great sequence in which he dis­cuss­es his ​‘strange’ approach to mak­ing music – clear­ly the most com­fort­able ter­ri­to­ry for him – it was a lit­tle frus­trat­ing not to learn more about this process.

There are refresh­ing admis­sions about his ear­ly ambi­tions for fame, though, and he doesn’t shy away from dis­cussing issues includ­ing race, AIDS, grief, and his ill-fat­ed Sony court case. Even if you ​‘know’ the George Michael sto­ry, it’s still a pow­er­ful expe­ri­ence to lis­ten to his music again in this high­ly politi­cised and per­son­al con­text. And it’s impor­tant to remem­ber how sig­nif­i­cant an album like Old­er was in response to the gov­ern­ment and media-imposed crises that impact­ed gay men in the 80s and 90s.

It’s also tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of pop­u­lar music that it can inspire, com­fort and bring joy to so many peo­ple. Hit after hit makes for a hair-rais­ing view­ing expe­ri­ence, while hear­ing Michael’s ren­di­tion of Ste­vie Wonder’s ​‘They Won’t Go When I Go’ may well make you shed a tear. Each time you think the film must be near­ing its con­clu­sion because you’ve heard every sin­gle, anoth­er one comes along to pro­vide yet more evi­dence of his remark­able range and talent.

Fun­ny, sad and ulti­mate­ly mov­ing, this is a fit­ting trib­ute to an excep­tion­al tal­ent. First broad­cast on Chan­nel 4 in 2017, with 30 min­utes of addi­tion­al footage and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the­atri­cal release, it’s well worth see­ing George Michael: Free­dom – The Director’s Cut on the big screen just for the sheer joy of hav­ing his music envel­op you in a cin­e­ma space. This is a film that will let you appre­ci­ate the pop star in a new way – but only if you’re will­ing to listen.