Elton John recently recognized it was time to quit performing live, and ended 50 years of entertaining in North America in 2022. His farewell tour is the subject of a new conventional documentary, "Elton John: Never Too Late," streaming on Disney Plus beginning December 13.
It's co-directed and produced by Elton's husband David Furnish. The film is semi-biographical, since it refers back to Elton's 1975 milestone concert at Dodger's Stadium, performing in front of 110,00 people, the first solo rock act to sell out a stadium. The result is a sentimental lopsided tribute to one of the 20th century's greatest rock stars.
It is staggering to consider that during Elton's glory years, 1970-1976, he released 13 albums, of which seven reached #1 on the Billboard charts and toured extensively throughout the world.
Known for his flamboyant personality, catchy rock ballads, and ostentatious honky-tonk piano style, only David Bowie was his equal in charisma and electrifying stage performances.
Yet he sees this era, despite all his accomplishments, as a dark period, using alcohol, cocaine, and casual sex to deal with depression and loneliness, culminating in a botched suicide attempt.
"I was either really having fun or very miserable," John says in the film. "There was an emptiness within me. My soul had gone dark...It was like I was dead... I wish it had been different."
Life on and offstage
There's brief mention of an abusive childhood full of fear. "My mother beat me till I bled with a wire brush until I was potty trained." His father showed little interest in him and never attended any of Elton's concerts. Music became his salvation and perhaps to escape his past, when he started playing in bands, he changed his name from Reginald Dwight, commenting, "Reg was never gonna make it."
Later his manager, and first lover John Reid, introduced him to cocaine. "A few drinks too many, if you crossed him, he'd punch you or he'd break a glass and put it in your face." Elton sums up his life in this period, "I didn't have anything other than my success and my drugs." Elton would get sober in 1990, though there's no mention of why and how that journey occurred.
Rocketing
The film centers on stops in various cities on the "Farewell Yellow Brick Road" itinerary, leading up to the final L.A. show, with countdowns announced in hot pink texts. Among the stars of the film is the 1970s concert footage, with a dynamic, agile, inventive, boundless, energetic Elton dressed in flashy glam clothes and funky vintage eyeglasses, almost levitating above his piano, performing his hit songs ("Your Song," "Rocket Man," "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," "Philadelphia Freedom").
When he gets to LA, he sings in his glittery Bob Mackie-designed Dodgers uniform, looking handsome and sexy. The later scenes of Elton, musing on his love for and friendship with his long-time songwriting partner, lyricist Bernie Taupin, are genuinely stirring.
The intent is to show how Elton's career has come full-circle in almost 50 years, but the comparisons between 1975 and 2022 are not flattering. He wears his redesigned Mackie Dodgers uniform but now to accommodate his sizable girth it looks like a muumuu. It's a struggle for Elton to get up and down from his piano. His quivering diminished voice pales with his earlier powerful vocal range. The viewer realizes this is the right time for Elton to exit before he becomes a parody of himself.
Singing with John
The highlight of the film is the John Lennon sequence detailing their friendship and their wild nights doing coke together. One hysterical scene is them hiding out in a hotel room, ignoring a knocking Andy Warhol at the door. They compose a song together, "Whatever Gets You Through the Night," which became a #1 hit.
Then Elton convinces Lennon to be his special musical guest for three songs at a 1974 Madison Square Garden concert, which would be the first time he performed on stage since the final 1966 Beatles concert. Lennon was so nervous he vomited before the show. The crowd roars with exhilaration when Lennon appears on stage. Elton was instrumental in reuniting Lennon and Yoko Ono after a split of several years.
Family time
The other fascinating video clip is Elton being interviewed by "Rolling Stone" in 1976, revealing he wanted love, but hadn't met anyone of either sex with whom he wanted to settle down. Elton says this confession of bisexuality did hurt his career with several conservative radio stations destroying his records, but it was worth the price of freedom. Yet there's nothing about him formally coming out as gay to "Rolling Stone" in 1993, nor any mention of his romance with Furnish or his work with AIDS charities.
Instead, we witness touching or sappy (depending on your perspective) moments of Elton, aged 75, speaking via Face Time with his two young boys, later admitting, "I'd like to see them get married, but I don't think I'm going to be around for that." Elton has found the warm familial/home life he was denied in his childhood. His husband and kids are the reason he's retiring.
Throughout the documentary, there are audio recordings of interviews Elton did with Alexis Petridis of "The Guardian" for his aptly titled 2019 autobiography, "Me." Elton condenses his life journey with the line, "It did take me 43 years to learn how to function as a human being, not just a rock star."
But overall, there are few new or lurid revelations here that haven't appeared in his memoir or previous interviews. While overall Elton is candid, with his husband directing and producing, he's presented in the best light possible, as a happy Father Christmas figure, beloved by fans. He shares his wisdom and talents with younger musicians through his 'Rocket Hour' podcast. He wrote the movie's theme song "Never Too Late" with singer Brandi Carlile.
Domesticated, hackneyed, and humdrum are the best words to describe this film, lacking the unconventionality, which drove Elton's peak metier. Certainly, one is glad Elton has found the happiness he deserves, but satisfaction rarely makes scintillating movies. Even the flawed biopic "Rocket Man" had more excitement and energy. At the documentary's conclusion, one realizes it's the songs that not only hold the movie together, but Elton's life as well. His career deserves to be celebrated and "Never Too Late" fulfills admirably that laudable goal.
www.disneyplus.com
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