8 / 10. A beautifully tragic telling of the rise of Queen, focusing on Freddie Mercury. Rami Malek is amazing as the incredible showman

Bohemian Rhapsody is a biographical/dramatic film about Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of British rock band Queen. It’s directed by Bryan Singer from a screenplay by Anthony McCarten.

The film covers Freddie’s life and, to a lesser extent close friend, Mary, and his band mates, from 1970 and the genesis of the massively popular Queen, up to the epic 1985 Live Aid benefit concert.

As a Queen fan, or not, Bohemian Rhapsody is an interesting film. It may be that some aspects aren’t an accurate portrayal of real life events, but Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor were involved in its creation and it’s a film created for entertainment, so it is a dramatic interpretation of the facts. It is quite long at 2 hours 13 minutes, but it didn’t feel like it.

Bohemian Rhapsody makes you feel a range of emotions. It is a beautifully tragic telling of the rise of Queen and is sad, entertaining, funny and uplifting. It’s an origin story of the band from their beginnings to their evolution into one of the most famous rock bands to have ever existed, but also a tale of their friendship. Excellent casting for the band (Gwilym Lee as Brian May, Ben Hardy as Roger Taylor, Joseph Mazzello as John Deacon), and Lucy Boynton is great as Mary Austin. Rami Malek excels as the incredible showman, Freddie Mercury, in one of the most accurate portrayals of a real person I’ve ever seen.

The end performance at Live Aid 1985 was beautiful and looks just like the real Queen. The music throughout the film is a mixture of Freddie’s original vocals and Rami’s vocals, which works incredibly well.

My favourite queen song, ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’ (also obviously from the Highlander soundtrack), is used here as Freddie becomes ill, showing the lyrics to be even more harrowing and poignant. Since starting this review, Rami has now won the Best Actor Oscar for this role, and well deserved it is.