Drag Queen

There is a moment in Bohemian Rhapsody when the screen swims with print. The reviews for Queen’s epic new single are in, and they unanimously denounce the song as a vacuous and bloated irrelevance. This feels like a brazen hostage to fortune for a biopic whose botched gestation saw writers, stars and directors roll on and off the project for a decade. But then Queen were always bomb-proof.

The script we finally have before us is by Anthony McCarten, who specialises in rewriting the lives of difficult Brits. See also Darkest Hour and The Theory of Everything, whose lead actors both won Oscars. Lightning will probably not strike thrice for Rami Malek. Fitted with rabbity prosthetic incisors, he pulls off a remarkable facsimile of Freddie Mercury’s pouts and howls and calisthenic struts. But he’s got more of a job on to animate him when not performing to a stadiumful of clapping disciples.