In between, director Bryan Singer (who was fired by Fox during filming and replaced by Dexter Fletcher ) leads us through the major points of Freddie and Queen’s biography, in a manner that feels both overloaded, and never quite enough. It’s possible the confused pacing is a result of the fraught environment on set. Singer’s constant absences caused the studio to halt production until someone else could be found, and cinematographer Thomas Newton Sigel reportedly had to direct scenes while he was MIA. But by attempting to show us everything, the film doesn’t linger in the moments that feel like they deserve more depth, or nuance. For example, Freddie’s (real name: Farrokh Bulsara) relationship with his parents, who immigrated to London from Zanzibar with the singer and his sister Kashmira in 1964, is woefully underexplored. So too are the later tensions that develop within the band when Freddie starts exploring his identity as a gay man. (Although, contrary to early fan fears , it does not erase that part of him, nor does it omit his AIDS diagnosis later in the film.)