Rock­et­man

When the biopic sendup Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Sto­ry hit cin­e­mas in 2007, it could’ve sig­nalled the end for a cer­tain species of hack­neyed char­ac­ter study. Instead, it unknow­ing­ly pro­vid­ed a blue­print for the many hyper-for­mu­la­ic analy­ses of the tor­ment­ed-yet-bril­liant that have fol­lowed Dewey’s exam­ple of what to not do to a T.

A reverse-engi­neer­ing from Walk Hard seems to be the only pos­si­ble expla­na­tion for the slav­ish rigour with which the new Elton John por­trait Rock­et­man adheres to its tem­plate. It is a par­o­dy of a par­o­dy, drain­ing the humour from what should by this point be punch lines. Direc­tor Dex­ter Fletch­er, who was last seen clean­ing up the mess Bryan Singer left of Bohemi­an Rhap­sody, may as well have made the film by mus­cle memory.

There’s a nasty child­hood, as the boy born Regi­nald Dwight chafes under an absen­tee father and a dili­gent­ly hurt­ful moth­er. (“I wish I had nev­er had chil­dren!” is Fletcher’s take on, ​“The wrong kid died!”) He finds sal­va­tion through song, first as a clas­si­cal pianist and then as a backer for soul musi­cians will­ing to share the wis­dom that only ever comes from old­er black men in movies like this.

As a young man Elton is played, with gap-tooth chom­pers and a series of increas­ing­ly wispy hair­pieces, by a ham-flavoured Taron Egerton, and the sto­ry sees him using his gift to escape his provin­cial upbring­ing. John links up with a rangy-haired song­writer (Jamie Bell) and they become fast friends eager to take on the world. Once the star­dom starts to hit, we all know the drill: sex, drugs, self-absorp­tion, alien­ation of the loved ones, rehab, and redemption.

To the film’s cred­it, it does not shy away from Sir Elton’s free­wheel­ing sex­u­al­i­ty, or the sti­fling effect that years spent in the clos­et had on his capac­i­ty to make roman­tic con­nec­tions. It’s a relief to see a well-bud­get­ed Amer­i­can stu­dio project will­ing to accept an R rat­ing, and to earn it by virtue of its ador­ing gaze on toned gluteals. As some have been eager to note, this film embraces the gay exu­ber­ance that made John such a cap­ti­vat­ing onstage pres­ence. One pro­duc­tion num­ber sug­gests an orgy with its dervish­es of writhing, the lone moment of dar­ing or cre­ative license in a film very clear­ly exec­u­tive-pro­duced by its subject.

Though John’s par­tic­i­pa­tion doesn’t hold the film back as much as he holds it togeth­er; he autho­rised the pro­duc­tion to ran­sack his song cat­a­logue and recre­ate all his most out­ra­geous getups, the music and cos­tum­ing being the least-hor­ri­ble com­po­nents of an oth­er­wise dread­ful sit. But nei­ther ele­ment can hon­est­ly be attrib­uted to Fletch­er, who’s leeched all present bril­liance from John’s lega­cy instead of con­jur­ing his own. Even the musi­cal num­bers, clos­er to Broad­way than Hol­ly­wood in their will­ing­ness to dive into fan­ta­sy, fore­ground the tunes while dis­guis­ing sub­par chore­og­ra­phy with flashy camerawork.

Rock­et­man aspires to noth­ing more than colour­ful reportage of a life already well-known to the pub­lic, dis­solv­ing into an ency­clo­pe­dia entry as the final title cards inform us that things turned out alright for this ​“Elton John” fel­low. The recent box-office suc­cess of Bohemi­an Rhap­sody indi­cates that the rote and expect­ed are pre­cise­ly what the peo­ple desire, the equiv­a­lent of yelling at the film indus­try to shut up and play the hits.

More trou­bling still, the crit­i­cal corps at Cannes – the last line of defence against medi­oc­ri­ties des­per­ate to be liked – seem to have large­ly giv­en this one a pass, judg­ing from the robust applause at this morning’s press screen­ing. To quote the great sage Dewey Cox: god­dammit, this is a dark fuck­ing period.