Sinziana Stanciu ‘20

November 2018

The band Queen is iconic in its own right, but this movie truly did the group’s astonishing history justice. Groundbreaking in their time, this movie highlights the life of their lead singer, Freddie Mercury, and how he truly became what we all know as one of the greatest performers of all time. This movie had audience members, including me, singing along to their timeless hits, laughing, and crying.

The movie is titled after one of the band’s most popular songs, Bohemian Rhapsody, because of its effect on them and their ability to find their sound. The battle for this song is representative of the larger battles that Queen has been forced to encounter throughout various points throughout their careers, focusing primarily on Mercury and the effect he had on the band. Portrayed by the phenomenal Rami Malek, this story of courage and self-discovery ending in despair is truly what makes Mercury so special. Mercury discovering himself and becoming what he truly wanted to be, surrounded by those he loved, was a difficult thing to achieve, and it shows the impact that love can have on all of us.

From a filming aspect, the movie was excellently shot and showed the expertise of the band and their ability to create a certain type of show for their audience without missing the little details. This is easily accentuated by the fabulous costumes of every single character, especially when Queen was in its prime. The costumes and historical consistency truly distinguish wardrobe in this movie.

The reception of this movie was greater than just my praises as someone who listened to Queen before the movie came out. Currently, the music video for “Bohemian Rhapsody” is 1st on the Apple iTunes Music Video Charts, the album The Platinum Collection (Greatest Hits I, II & III) is 5th on the Apple iTunes Album charts and the song Bohemian Rhapsody is 8th on the Apple iTunes Songs charts. No doubt inspired by the movie which has been out for weeks now, the cementing of Queen as legendary is complete. Although the movie only received 68% on rotten tomatoes, this feels like one of the situations where the audience’s opinion is not aligned with reviewers. 98% of Google users liked the movie, which is a drastic difference from the tough critiques.