New Zealand Listener – June 08, 2019

56 LISTENER JUNE 8 2019

BOOKS&CULTURE

ROCKETMAN

directed by Dexter Fletcher

E

lton John spent much of his early

career living dangerously and

performing outrageously while

delivering music that largely

played it safe, but conquered the

world. Rocketman, an enjoyable, uncon-

ventional but less-than-memorable rock

biopic of the man – and one that feels like

it’s also auditioning as a stage musical –

largely does the same.

It’s steeped in 1970s John

fabulosity. It’s got sex, drugs and spec-

tacular crimes against fashion. It often

leaps – platform heels, sequined dunga-

rees and all – into episodes of musical

fantasia. The title song, for example,

is performed at the bottom of a swim-

ming pool into which a strung-out John

(Taron Egerton) has jumped, want-

ing to end it all. There, he duets with

himself as a boy (nice high harmony) in

an astronaut suit. It’s just one moment

among many in which the songs feel like

It’s a little

bit funny

The movie of Elton

John’s life does some

odd things in its mix

of rock biopic and

stage musical.

FILM

GLORIA BELL

directed by Sebastián Lelio

G

loria Bell looks like a woman on

the verge of irrelevance. She’s a

divorced mother to adult children

who barely contact her, works in

a middling insurance job and, as if being

taunted by singledom, keeps finding a

stray hairless cat on her couch. She cruises

the Californian freeway, crooning tune-

lessly to Olivia Newton-John: “Will a little

more love make it right?” It sure sounds

like it.

Then again, consider that Gloria is

played by Julianne Moore, an actor of

immense elegance and composure, pos-

sessed of a lighthouse-beam of a smile.

When she walks into a bar, she’s the cool-

est person around. However much Gloria

might be afflicted by ennui, she doesn’t

let it show: “When the world blows up, I

hope I go down dancing.”

Sebastián Lelio’s tender and sweetly

vulnerable film is full of this kind of light

and shade. On one level, it’s a portrait of

dating in middle age, full of both ecstasy

and awkwardness (John Turturro plays her

difficult love interest). On a deeper level,

it’s about Gloria’s often-bewildering hunt

for purpose, stranded between youth and

encroaching middle age.

It makes sense that Lelio should be

Stuck in a

groove

Julianne Moore

shines as a divorcee

looking for love on

the dance floor.

Julianne Moore:

some of her finest and

most delicate work.

Taron Egerton as

Elton John: a decent

impersonation, both

acting and singing.