«Music of my life», the musical biopic too far

Cinema Wednesdays - Jonas Follonier

After Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, is yet another musical biopic, and probably one too many. Music of my life (Blended by the light) has the merit of relating not the life of the artist in question - Bruce Springsteen - but that of one of his fans, a young Pakistani student in Thatcherite England in the '80s. Unfortunately, this singularity is weakened by all the soft-heartedness. Opinion.

British filmmaker Dexter Fletcher has produced two musical biographies that have caused a stir this year and last: Bohemian Rhapsody, which tells the story of Queen and its band leader Freddy Mercury, and Rocketman, centered with over kitsch and perhaps less talent on Elton John. From the UK, in autumn 2019, comes another musical biopic, this time from Gurinder Chada, whose origins are Indian. And that's important: the director's Indian origins were already evoked in her first film, A trip to Blackpool, released in 1993 and awarded the Jury Prize at the Locarno Festival. Pakistan, like India, is the result of the division of the British colonial empire of India into two countries along religious lines.

In Blended by the light, foolishly renamed Music of my life for French-speaking audiences, we follow the daily life of Javed, a young Luton student stifled by his Pakistani family. This little corner of the world is not immune to the unstable and depressing social climate. Community spirit is at an all-time high, and unemployment is beginning to make itself felt in no small way. Outside, young people skinheads right-wing extremists piss in the doors of immigrant homes, the rain pours down, the dogs howl. Javed's heart is also screaming. It's howling with anger both at a father with an old-fashioned Pakistani mentality and at a society that doesn't want him. It screams with love for the pretty far-left activist Eliza. A friend throws Bruce Springsteen into his walkman. Javed tells himself that Bruce sings exactly how he feels. He can be free.

This description of the film is hardly an exaggeration. And that's one of the regrets we can legitimately have as viewers. Just because a story is simple, and that simplicity is beautiful, doesn't mean we have to settle for an artistic treatment that borders on silliness. For yes, the themes of the difficulty of asserting oneself in a family and in society, of the first stirrings of love, of the comfort of popular songs - themes touched on in Music of my life, are universal and important. But that's not enough to make a good film. What's needed is an original angle, a form or a man, something or a few things to pull the viewer in, make them think about their condition, laugh or cry. Here, the cliché serves no purpose and, worse, the story is not very fine and is also totally far-fetched as a whole. To be avoided.

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Warner Bros. Entertainment