The Shrine

I highly recommend ignoring the critics and seeing it, if you have any love for Freddie Mercury or Queen. It really doesn't sanitize the issues around Freddy's life, despite what some are saying, and while there are a few minor factual inaccuracies, it's nothing that should prevent anyone from enjoying the film.

Rami Malek ought to win Best Actor for this, if there's any justice, as he utterly channels Freddie in a performance I'm sure could not have been easy.

I haven’t seen it, but from I have heard the core motivation for the negative criticism comes from the fact that there’s no big focus on his sexuality; using terms like “sanitized” and “revisionist” in a way to be more deceptive about their meaning while getting the same point across. I think society is still hung over at the quick rate which homosexuality went from being a mark of shame to having conservative hosts, elected politicians, and major church leaders being openly gay that critics still think it’s proper to have an unbalanced focus on homosexuality. But if that were the case, then I think the issue would have overshadowed the parts that the filmmakers wish to emphasize. Don’t get me wrong, if it were 1998 - then go full on into the gay stuff because that would have been a bold exclamation point.

Again, I haven’t seen the film and don’t know much about it other than the chatter and a few brief overviews of critical response; so I could be talking nonsense.

Either way, negative criticism hasn’t stopped the film from hitting #2 in the alltime biopics - just behind Straight Outta Compton, and it’s expected to hit #1.

I thought that, going in, as well - but the movie really doesn't gloss over nearly as much as people are yelling about. In fact, I don't think it glosses over very much at all. You see Freddie telling his fiancee that he thinks he's bisexual just as Queen is starting to take off - to which Mary's frustrated response is "Freddie, you're gay!", which she's clearly known for some time. You see him falling out with his straight bandmates as they get married and he builds a pleasure palace instead and starts living the cruising lifestyle. You see him dying of AIDS, too.

I'm not even sure the movie would have been better if it focused more on his sexuality. It's really all pretty up front and on the table as it is. As it is the human side of Freddie Mercury really comes across, just because he's *not* reduced to a gay caricature or a stereotype, and I think it actually helps the film succeed (which it really does).