I just finished three recent musical biographical films. All of them had fine acting and visuals; the difference in their impact is all about the story, as chosen by the writers and directors.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Rocketman" had similar stories: glamourous gay rock star struggles with identity, changes his name, has an evil manager/lover, wild parties, loyal friends who he abandons, and so on.
However, from the very first scene, Rocketman establishes itself as a journey of self-pity. Our protagonist clearly states he feels bad and wants to know why. No one cares about him, and neither does the audience.
In contrast, BR establishes itself as a journey of ambition. The talented boy wants out of his ordinary life and is willing to work hard to do it. You may or may not like the guy (he *is* kinda whiney and makes a lot of trouble for himself) but you have to admire his pluck. He's gonna work for it!
BR had the tragic advantage of being about a man who died; he faces an unfair death, which is a powerful story. The equally promiscuous and whiney Rocketman (I have no idea whether either portrayal is accurate, nor does it matter) ultimately suffered no consequences but emotional pain - sad enough but the natural fate of most of us.
Thus the final scene has Rocketman triumphally confront the demons of his past ... a worthy achievement of interest to no-one but himself ... whereas BR gives a massive farewell performance in service to starving people. This is a glorious moment we all feel good about; every song in that segment is about the hero bravely accepting death while performing one ultimate good deed. (He even takes positive steps to earn reconciliation with his family and friends; Rocketman's Best Friend simply comes back one day without any effort on Rocketman's part.) This is all the more frustrating because the coda to Rocketman talks about his very worthy charitable work which is left out of the movie. The protagonist is left looking like a selfish kid who lucked into massive talent, suffered because the world is full of jerks, and eventually decides to grow up. This is not very interesting.
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Someone made a dreadful strategic error by shooting "Rocketman" in the Magical Realism style. MR works with "Birdman" or "The Color Of Water" because we know these aren't real; whether Birdman is really talking to the protagonist or is it all in his head creates story. In contrast, in Rocketman all the magical scenes do is make you wonder: is this happening or is it just symbolic?
For example, a steamy sex scene (presumably abbreviated to preserve its ratings) is followed by a shopping trip with the Evil Lover/Manager. All very well, but the movie realism of the sex scene totally clashes with the fantasy shopping trip. When are we supposed to stop seeing "what is happening is actually happening", and go into "it's just a musical number expressing a mood"?
What I learned from this movie is that Magical realism is incompatible with montages. Montage is a useful movie device where we accept rapid changes of scene to show the passage of time and effort. But because in Rocketman we learned in previous scenes (where people floated or doors opened into Wonderland) that we can't trust our eyes in this story, we never know whether the concert montage is showing a series of different events and thus the passage of time, or one event where the costumes morphed, showing ... what?
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And finally ... the singing. Singing like Freddy Mercury or Elton John is not so easy, but it's a foundational skill in such a film. Somehow the music in "Bohemian Rhapsody" is great to listen to; I don't know how they did it and I don't care; it totally worked and supported the story.
"Rocketman" vocals are uniformly awful. For the first song, I thought the director was trying for an effect: that the young singer was just not that good. It never got better. Throughout the whole film, we could never understand with our ears why anyone was buying records of this flat karaoke. In a story whose fuel is the awesomeness of the music, it was as disconcerting as the Three Muskateers dropping their swords or Batman punching himself in the face.
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The third movie, "Yesterday", was pure honest fantasy, and the most fun of the lot. The story was a solid Hero's Journey with the great music of the Beatles given a new spin. "Help!" in particular had an emotion and sincerity I'd never seen before.
I don't know whether it wasn't bigger because the Beatles generation is running out of steam or whether ... let me be direct ... race was a factor. The lead was perfect for the part; his character was believably ambitious and conflicted and funny; his love interest was smart and sweet; and they are of different races. Too many audiences are still not comfortable with the concept of a man of color being an authentic Brit and the true love of a beautiful and competent white woman. This is all the greater pity because their love story feels authentic (apart from the 2nd-Choice lover abruptly disappearing) and drives the story.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is the best of the three and will be worth watching 20 years from now because it is a true hero's journey excellently crafted, but "Yesterday" will be good fun to watch then too.
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