Where Iām torn on it, is I know absolutely no film can be completely perfect. But! I would have thought for a biopic they might have chosen a story they could tell with your usual arcs, or tried something new and different rather than doing what they did. Degrading Freddieās character for what was almost entirely a fictional drama, and messing up what accurate events they did include by messing with the timeline so heavily. Something that was deeply unnecessary given the movie didnāt even span Freddieās entire career, fading to black six years before he passed.
Then, even if I forgive the film for terrible structure and portrayal of its main cast, it falls completely short again with its handling of a queer storyline. It put very little focus on that part of his life for a movie supposedly all about it. In favour of what? Portraying Mary as his everything because people only ever read that bit without any of its surrounds or the comprehension of the era in which he said it (and why he might have chosen to hide behind Mary at every opportunity he could). The coming out scene in the movie felt as though it was written by a toddler. Portraying that Freddie ever called himself bisexual is confusing and incorrect, (I watched the movie with some straight family, and after having seen the film their takeaway was that Freddie was bisexual, he simply became gay). The only gay friend the movie really shows him having aside from Jim is literally āthe villainā of the story.
The portrayal of aids is pathetic to begin with, but especially pathetic when you actually start reading the books available to you (about Freddie) it becomes obvious that if anyone did read the books, they didnāt take away much that you wouldnāt have heard by not reading at all. His fear of the disease, his friends who were hurt by it (because in the movie he kept no real friends who could have been hurt), the fact he held off on telling anyone for so long or until he absolutely had to. Thatās all forgotten.
All this to say I think they could have tried harder to make something better. A change of format, focus, or even sequels would likely have created something watchable.
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