Elton John: Never Too Late
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Rating: PG-13
Run Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
Star: Elton John
Directors: R.J. Cutler, David Furnish
In theaters; Streaming on Disney+ December 13
Reviewed at the Toronto International Film Festival
When your husband is co-directing your definitive big-screen documentary, it’s for sure he’s going to feature your best angles (if he knows what’s good for him, that is).
Such is the case with Elton John: Never Too Late – a film that doubles as an account of Elton’s long career and as a record of his farewell concert tour, culminating with a triumphant return to Los Angeles’s Dodger Stadium, where the roar of a sellout crowd practically caused an avalanche in Chavez Ravine way back in 1975.
Not that we’re here to excavate unseemly details about Elton’s 50-plus years in the spotlight. And to be fair, there’s considerable attention paid to his history of drug and alcohol abuse (although it would be a bit silly to try and paper that over, since the singer has been open about those struggles since the 1980s). What we get is a tuneful tour of Rocketman’s career trajectory from his days as a 15-year-old prodigy to his latter-day tenure as a doting father who happens to be one of the most famous people on earth.
As structured by co-directors R.J. Cutler (The War Room) and David Furnish (Elton’s spouse and producer of the Oscar-winning Rocketman), the film is structured as a countdown, with present-day Elton reminiscing as he moves from city to city on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. At each step he gives his fans – ranging from kids to contemporaries – exactly what they want, which is to say somewhat gravelly renditions of songs that the singer once tossed off with the golden-voiced panache of a naughty angel. Not that 77-year-old Elton has entered a growly Tom Waits phase, but a half-century of “Benny and the Jets” is going to take its toll on your vocal cords.
What sets Never Too Late apart is its generous use of reportedly never-before-seen-or-heard clips — including the sound of baby-voiced Reginald, still known by his birth name, covering 1950s rock songs in English pubs. Maybe the world’s most die-hard Elton fans are familiar with glimpses of his landmark 1970 Troubadour performance, or footage of his lightning-in-a-bottle 1974 Madison Square Garden duet with John Lennon — but I’d never seen them before, and I’m betting most casual fans have not, either.
Best of all, the film bookends it all with Elton’s two Dodger Stadium concerts: His 1975 gig, marking the first time a solo artist had ever commanded a U.S. stadium, and his 2022 return, resplendent in a somewhat-let-out version of his iconic sequin-studded Dodgers uniform/bodysuit. It’s worth noting that while the ’75 footage clearly shows some empty seats in the upper decks, the later date is an uninterrupted mass of humanity.
That’s staying power.
I emerged from Never Too Late, oddly enough, thinking of my parents. I recalled my 10-year-old self watching The Hollywood Palace with my family, trying to figure out what in the world my mom and dad were getting out of this strained performance by a clearly depleted Bing Crosby or a tired comedy routine by a slow-talking Groucho Marx. Even then I realized these guys were once positively dynamite; I knew Crosby changed the way singers sang and that Groucho changed the way funny people were funny. But now? Wasn’t seeing them like this just a little, well, sad?
I am now far older than my parents were then. Elton John is older than that aged Groucho, and he’s already lived longer than Bing did. And no, when Elton sings “Rocketman,” I don’t expect him to leap from his feet and hang, almost supernaturally, perpendicular to his piano, the way he did at the Troubadour in 1970.
But I swear, there is still that magic – not just in the memory, but in the man today. And I’ve come to understand my parents’ laughter and sighs that once confounded me before that flickering TV.
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