Ay-Oh! Ay-Oh! The November release, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” was both a memorable and extremely enjoyable experience. The acting was excellent, the time period was believable, and the songs, were thankfully, not covers. Two members of Queen, Brian May and Roger Taylor, were producers on the film. However, the story was historical fiction, to say the least, but to the average moviegoer, who had only heard a few Queen songs, the movie was fantastic. It was full of missing pieces that artfully connected Freddie Mercury’s life together, making for a truly wonderful film.

The lead actor, Rami Malek, had to go through quite the transformation to look like Freddie Mercury. Malek wanted to wear a pair of clip in incisors to really understand Mercury, who had incredibly large teeth.

“I asked to have the teeth almost a year prior to filming.” Malek said. “It took some time getting used to. I wanted to be comfortable with them on as much as I could because it was difficult to talk with them on, let alone sing with them.”

The movie was quite different from reality, as the producers and crew tried to fit years, months, and hours into single scenes. The timeline did not exactly match up to reality which was met with a lot of backlash from fans of the popular group. The choice to change the timeline was probably made for production purposes so that audiences could get their happy ending. Mercury’s AIDS diagnosis, for example, came two years after the Live-Aid performance. This was most likely done to end the movie on a high note, as Queen’s Live-Aid performance is noted as being one of the best live rock performances of all time. Brian May and Roger Taylor chose to leave out some of Queen’s controversial actions, like performances in Apartheid South Africa and why the film was loaded with easter eggs. The most noticeable of these being Bono, exiting the stage as Queen is entering at Live Aid and actor Mike Myers playing the producer who told Queen they would never go anywhere.

Overall, the movie was very entertaining. Mercury had a fascinating story that was not told in the media or when he performed. Even those who knew him did not truly understand him. Bohemian Rhapsody is now the highest grossing musical biopic of all time. Even though Mercury was so complex, Queen was a family and their success came from one another.