Ah reading week, the time of year when we are supposed to take this blessed break from classes to catch up on assignments and prepare for finals but absolutely none of that happens. For myself, in between struggling to do the bare minimum of homework so that I don’t feel like a completely awful student, I take the time to pick up some work shifts but more importantly catch up on my movie and Netflix watching. Heading into the impending holiday season has its perks, pretty snow on the ground, holiday baking, but also a relief from the somewhat okay but mostly average late summer and early fall movies. The November/December time of year means gearing up for Oscar’s season and the release line up for the next few weeks shows that.
This week, I saw the first film on my growing list, Bohemian Rhapsody. In short this film follows the life of Freddie Mercury and Queen through their formation, rise to fame, and struggles as one of the most successful recording groups of all time. As someone who grew up past Queen’s active reign and the passing away of Freddie Mercury, I was always somewhat familiar with their music. Well, I was familiar with their hits (“Another One Bites the Dust”, “Bohemian Rhapsody” etc.) as they would play at elementary school dances, were featured on Crazy Frog CDs from my 8 year old self’s collection or were covered on Glee (which I was an avid 12 year old fan of). Regardless of this somewhat inexperienced exposure to Queen, the film was phenomenal. Rami Malek’s performance was stupendous and I, even now as I write, am at a loss for words of how he threw himself into the character and blew it out of the water. The supporting actors were similarly phenomenal providing a great cohesive cast chemistry that worked to support and tell the story. The plot of the film itself was fast paced and exciting, full of not only shots and scenes of the band performing but also a look into how they made their music, into their creative process. Of course all the narrative is peppered with Queen’s greatest hits blasting from the movie theatre sound system which in itself was worth sitting through the film for. The roughly two and a half hour running time went by in a flash and I left the theatre, got into my car and immediately pulled up a Queen Spotify playlist. I won’t say much more in hopes of avoiding spoilers, because although the film is a true story and ultimately spoiler proof, I myself (like I said above) did not know the story of Queen going into the film, only their music, but I left inspired, entertained, and ready for the one-woman rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody” that was to be inevitably performed on my drive home.