Or you will find Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis sugarcoating the King’s abusive marriage to a much-younger Priscilla Presley.
There’s almost a reluctance towards visual creativity, falling to the wayside compared to maximalist efforts like Baz Luhrmann’s glitzy Elvis.
While most musical biopics adhere to clichés and rigid creative parameters, the most effective examples, like “Rocketman” and “Straight Outta Compton,” and even to a lesser degree “Elvis,” succeed because they embrace artistic license and point of view or at least attempt to reframe their subjects.
The best musician biopics—movies like Rocketman, Elvis, and Better Man—never forget their subjects are mortal.
The modern musical biopic is less biography and more hagiography, usually with a great soundtrack. Bohemian Rhapsody, Elvis, and Walk the Line have no interest in telling the real story of the people who made the songs we love.
…as, say, Baz Luhrmann did for Elvis…