Stream or skip?

Stream or skip?

Elton John: Never too late arrives on Disney+ following its premiere last September at the Toronto International Film Festival and after the singer, songwriter and pianist completes 50 years of live performance with Farewell Yellow Brick Road, his nine-leg, 330-date farewell tour. (The year-long excursion joins Taylor Swift’s Epochs as one of the best-selling live events in all of recorded history.) Directed by RJ Cutler (Martha) and David Furnish, Elton John’s husband, and is based on John’s conversations with journalist Alexis Petridis for the Autobiography 2019 Me, Never too late strikes a confessional tone as the singer reflects on how he came to define himself throughout his career. “There was an emptiness inside me,” says John Never too late. “I desperately didn’t want to be the Elton I had become.”

The essentials: Between 1970 and 1975, Elton John and his band released eight full-length studio recordings, albums containing enduring classics such as “Your Song,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Levon,” “Bennie and the Jets” and the original “Candle in the Wind.” (What a mess! Today’s prestige television could never do that, with its year-long gaps between eight-episode seasons.) The singer and pianist was from the sold-out Troubadour in Los Angeles in 1970 – capacity 300 – went on to play a sold-out concert. In 1975, he performed three nights at Dodger Stadium, where hundreds of thousands of fans were enthralled by his bejeweled, Bob Mackie-designed Dodger uniform. But with all this success and glamor, where was the man born Reginald “Reg” Dwight in 1947 in Pinner, Middlesex, England? In a 2022 interview for Never too lateJohn says that after he realized his dreams of making it were fulfilled, he had nothing to replace them with. Well, except for alcohol, cocaine and empty sex.

John’s farewell tour plays a big role Never too lateas it accompanies him on tour in the months leading up to a new round of shows at Dodger Stadium. (These celebratory shows in 2022 became a Disney+ concert special.) Using audio recordings of Petridis’ interviews with John, the documentary also delves into the singer’s childhood, where he grew up in a violent home with disowned parents , his musical influences – Check out the incredible footage of Winifred Atwell playing the boogie-woogie piano on British TV in 1954 – and his first appearances. Over color stills of his grinning little self-portraits that he plays in Pinner pubs with a microphone and a farfisa, John says that Elton has officially replaced Reg there for good.

Never too late contains no supporting interviews or the usual round of celebrity testimonials that a documentary about a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer would contain. (In contrast, there’s plenty of this in the adjacent Dodger Stadium concert special.) It’s more of a confessional than a traditional music documentary, with John reflecting on a life and career in the twilight years. After all, he is an older man with some health issues, a younger spouse, and two very young children. But he is also able to look at the journey with some humor, some regret, and a fair amount of insight. His passionate but destructive relationship with John Reid, his lover and manager – Reid, who was played in two recent biopics by Richard Madden and Aidan Gillen – and his eventual decision to come out publicly and get sober – these are parts of what shaped him, what ultimately made him healthy. “To be honest, it took me years and years.” It’s never too late to look in the mirror.

Elton John: Never too late
PHOTO: Disney+

What films will it remind you of? Even though it was a hit in its own right and remains the better film, it still feels that way Rocket Manthe 2019 Elton John biopic starring the all-in Taron Egerton has had some of its thunderbolt stolen Bohemian Rhapsody. And as far as looking back at the end of a career, the 2023 documentary I am a noise remains a powerful testament to creativity and personal inspiration as it profiles the life, work and activism of singer-songwriter Joan Baez.

Performance worth seeing: Never too late Forgoes excerpt interviews, so we never hear from them in person. But the longevity of Elton John’s band is commendable. People like drummer Nigel Olsson and guitarist Davey Johnstone, with whom John has played and performed for decades, and who feel just as important to his work and career as John’s long-standing partnership with lyricist Bernie Taupin.

Memorable dialogue: “Then came my debauchery.” Maybe it’s because he’s an artist or because he’s spoken extensively on the subject. But the way Elton John shares his most confessional moments feels both revealing and like a self-inflicted spill. “All I lived for was my chart position, sex and cocaine.”

Gender and skin: Better put: flamboyance, a power John harnessed through tailored stage costumes to be the angriest version of himself. This guy has a long, proud history of spelling out his name in sequins on the back of blouses, jackets, and jerseys Never too late reveals the receipts.

Our opinion: It’s almost intimate how we listen to Elton John’s conversation with the journalist Alexis Petridis throughout Never too late. These conversations are never conducted on camera, so there is a sense of closeness when shown over archival performance footage, excerpts from John’s private writings and diaries, and the documentary’s general swing from the 1970s to the 2020s. It is Elton John himself, not an outside narrator, who gives each clip personal context. And it’s John who often admits how he really felt in those moments, even as the footage shows a successful musician doing his best, making thousands of fans sing and enjoying the ins and outs of that pop star life. John says that in the end, being truly happy was never what he wanted or needed. And so he retreated to a room, just like he had as a child, ignored by his parents, only this time it was a hotel suite and a three-day drug addict.

Never too late is also good at balancing those emotional notes with contemporary stuff involving Elton John in front of the camera while either preparing for or playing his Farewell Yellow Brick Road shows. He is satisfied. He is curious. (Talking to a young band for his podcast, John notes that he is 64 years older than their drummer.) And he’s happy with the result, even if he’s always found it difficult to balance his personal demons against professional success. “I adopted the good nature of Winifred Atwell, the aggressiveness of Little Richard and the cheekiness of Jerry Lee Lewis into my playing style and developed into a personality that is second to none.” But beyond what he brought to the stage it is what we hear in his own words that shapes the most lasting moments Elton John: Never too late.

Our call: Stream it. Never too late is a kind of documentary companion to Elton Johns Live at Dodger Stadium Concert special. They represent the musician’s professional farewell after 50 years of making records, playing shows and searching for personal satisfaction, and before his own candle burns out in the wind.

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent author and editor living in Chicago. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media and Nicki Swift.

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