WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
I think we can all say that there are times that being a fan of someone can lead to feeling like you know them because you want to know everything about them. I know for a fact that was me as teenager, especially in terms of some of the boybands I was into (I know, McFly and Busted possibly shouldn’t be classed that way but what else were they really?) So, on that note, here are a few films based around famous people from different fields…
Radioactive
What’s beautiful about this film is that it is filmed in a way that it is like Marie Curie is remembering her life as she passes on. Mentioning this, it means that the film begins at the end of Marie’s life before leading into the first time she meets her future husband, Pierre Curie. Truthfully, Radioactive is about both Pierre Curie and Marie Skłodowska instead of being specifically about Marie herself because as we know it was their joint research into radioactivity that meant they discovered both Radium and Polonium together. This is not to say that Rosamund Pike doesn’t portray Marie to be the strong-willed woman of science that I always imagined her to be but I’m not one hundred percent sold on the likeness.
I have one little issue – of course with all these films you wonder about the accuracy of things. So, I looked into the quadrant electrometer that Pierre brings out claiming it is ‘his instrument’. For me this sounded like he invented it but through all my research, his name isn’t on a single version. I also feel that in a 104 minute film, they slightly rush through Marie Curie’s life and I find the switches between the past and the present (as far as the story is set) slightly take you out of the story a little.
Bohemian Rhapsody
Let’s get the likeness conversation out of the way first – and I want to talk about all 4 members of the band as this film is actually about Queen, not just Freddie. I was actually really let down because I don’t feel there is enough of a likeness between Rami Malek and Freddie (made more obvious by the vanity cards at the end) but they seemed to nail Roger, Brian and John – especially with John Deacon’s short curly hair! Annoyingly this actually took me out of the film a little. However, what I enjoyed about the film is that they didn’t focus too much on Freddie sexuality which always seems to be a massive talking point but instead focused on the two most important relationships in his life – Mary Austin and Jim Hutton… obviously that’s without discussing his cats! I also love that this ends on a reasonably happy note with Live Aid instead of following all the way through to Freddie’s death in 1991. Unfortunately it did remind me that I may have been born in the wrong decade as I feel like I missed out on one of the best gigs of all time!
Elizabeth
In 1997 a 29 year old Cate Blanchett took on the role of 25 year old Queen Elizabeth I. With the film starting in 1558, the timeline becomes a little confusing. Under suspicion, Elizabeth was imprisoned for at least a year for conspiring against her sister Mary I – meaning this must have happened in 1557. However the film shows this as being a matter of months as she is imprisoned in her home when Mary passes away before becoming queen herself in November of 1558. I also wonder if they increased the role of Robert Dudley. It is said that he was a suitor for Queen Elizabeth, whom she later proposed to marry to her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots. However, the film shows that he was her not-so-secret, already married, lover.
Milk
This film follows the rise of the first homosexual to be elected to public office. I’m not sure if Harvey Milk actually created a tape at the risk of his own assassination but I love that they used this as a way of talking us through the events that take place in this film. It is also unclear if he genuinely had a partner during his several campaigns for city supervisor but then there’s nothing about the riots and protests that take place in Castro leading to his final, and successful, run in 1977. What’s great about this film is the way they interspersed the film with the genuine footage of the voting on proposition 6 (this would have meant that a teacher, teacher’s aide or counsellor could be fired if they were found to be homosexual or encouraging sexual acts) as well as the lead up to it. Of course this film ends with Harvey’s assassination and the following candlelit vigil from Castro Street to City Hall – all of which took place…30,000 people marched in fact.
Goodbye, Christopher Robin
So, they describe this film as being focused around the father-son relationship between A.A Milne and his son Christopher Robin. Now, obviously this isn’t something that can be quantified on screen as I guess no one really knows what their relationship was like. For me, the film is more about the creation of the Winne-the-Pooh stories and from what I understand of the inspiration for the character, they have it bang on. My only bone of contention was that as far as I understood it was Milne who took his son to London Zoo where they saw Winnipeg ‘Winnie’ the bear but I think that was an assumption on my part based on the way it’s written online.
Ed Wood
First off, can I just say that I love the fact that Tim Burton decided to make a film about Ed Wood in the style of an Ed Wood film! This film takes us through his directing career from Glen or Glenda with Bela Lugosi and Dolores Fuller, including the reveal of his cross-dressing (Depp does make a reasonably good woman), to Plan 9 from Outer Space. However I don’t think this is supposed to be the main focus of the film. Instead its focusing on his relationship with Lugosi and how he tried to reignite his career – but it was not seen this way in real life, instead Bela Lugosi Jnr believed that Wood was trying to exploit his father’s fame. It’s interesting that they stopped the film where they did instead of following on to Ed’s work in pornography but then I guess that wouldn’t really have suited the style of film that Burton was trying to put together.
