Dexter Fletcher gives performers time to make familiar stories worth caring about. We rate his warmth and his willingness to let songs take over, though the dramatic writing can be much less adventurous.
Fi1m perspective
In Wild Bill (2011), Will Poulter's Dean has responsibilities that leave little room for being a teenager. Fletcher lets the strain show without hurrying us towards sympathy, and the exchanges between Poulter and Charlie Creed-Miles are the film's strongest scenes. We were moved by Dean's struggle because Poulter makes his wish for an ordinary teenage life as convincing as his effort to cope. Fletcher can be sentimental, but here he gives the actors enough time to make the feeling persuasive. We rate him most when he trusts them this much.
The crime story is less assured, with familiar gangster types and plotting that limits their menace. Fletcher's screenplay, co-written with Danny King, is better at finding humour in difficult circumstances without making fun of the people enduring them. Editor Stuart Gazzard allows the quieter exchanges to breathe rather than chasing the next plot development. Cinematographer George Richmond keeps attention on the people, while Murray McKeown's production design gives them a credible setting without competing for notice. The family scenes are worth the interruptions.
After his feature debut, Wild Bill, came Sunshine on Leith (2013), a musical using Proclaimers songs, and the underdog sports biography Eddie the Eagle (2016). Taron Egerton appeared in the latter and became central to Rocketman (2019), Fletcher's musical biography of Elton John. Egerton's singing carries much of its appeal, but Fletcher gives the songs jobs beyond announcing another stage in John's career. They change a scene's mood and allow fantasy to take over where ordinary dialogue would struggle. We recommend it on those terms.
Between the songs, Lee Hall's screenplay keeps returning to familiar explanations for its central character's unhappiness. Fletcher is more inventive about staging a musical biography than about handling its conventional dramatic passages. The numbers continue to surprise after the story has become predictable, which is enough to make Rocketman enjoyable without making it wholly satisfying. Start with Wild Bill for his patience with actors, then try Rocketman for what happens when he stops requiring a scene to behave realistically.
Biography
Dexter Fletcher is an English actor and film director. Born on 31 January 1966 in Enfield, Greater London, he trained at the Anna Scher Theatre and began his career as a child actor, appearing in Bugsy Malone (1976) and The Elephant Man (1980). As an adult he played Soap in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and John W. Martin in the HBO series Band of Brothers (2001).
Fletcher's directing credits include Wild Bill (2011), Sunshine on Leith (2013) and Eddie the Eagle (2016). He completed Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) after replacing Bryan Singer and received an executive producer credit; he also directed the Elton John biopic Rocketman (2019). He has been married to theatre and film director Dalia Ibelhauptaitė since 1997.
