Documentary film “Elton John: Never Too Late”, which was released on Disney+ a few months ago, works whenever it focuses on what may be the last chapter of Elton John’s life and career. After all, considering that he is about to have his 78th birthday at this point, he is surely thoughtful about how to spend the rest of his life as well as how fortunate he has been during last several decades, and that makes the documentary a bit touching at times.

Closely looking into how he went through what would be his farewell concert tour in 2022, the documentary looks over John’s overall career and life. As some of you know, he was born to a rather unhappy and miserable couple in 1947, and he still remembers how he was often abused by his parents during his childhood years. That is why he came to focus more on music while showing considerable interest and talent in music, and he soon began to earn some money as playing piano in local bars.

Around the late 1960s, John was ready to go further as an aspiring musician, but he needed someone who could write better lyrics than him. By coincidence, he happened to be connected with a lad named Bernie Taupin, who eventually became a longtime professional partner and wrote many of John’s songs including that Oscar-winning song for “Rocketman” (2019). Once they clicked well with each other, John and Taupin became quite a productive team, and it did not take much time for them to get their first big success in UK.

After he became a rising new British singer to notice, John naturally went to US. Although his first performance in LA was rather modest, he quickly drew more public attention while doing more concerts here and there in US, and this surely boosted his career a lot. Around the beginning of the 1970s, he was regarded as the next big British superstar after the Beatles and David Bowie, and he became all the busier as relentlessly churning out a series of successful songs and albums during next several years.

Shuffling among a bunch of archival photographs and footage clips, the documentary tries to convey to us how exciting it was for him to be suddenly on the top of his field. He was really happy to perform his music in front of hundreds of audiences, and it is evident that he still enjoys that even during his farewell concert. Yes, he is not young anymore now, and he surely looks less active compared to those wild times in his past, but he is still ready for his performance nonetheless.

As approaching to 80, John becomes more aware of how precious the remaining life for him is, and that is the main reason why he decided to retire from doing concert tours. He wants to spend more time with his husband David Furnish, who incidentally directed the documentary with R.J. Cutler, and their two young kids, but you may sense some bittersweet feeling when he frankly admits that he may not live that long enough to see his dear two sons going to college and then having each own adult life.       

John is also quite open about some of his bad times. As being more aware of his homosexuality, he became more conflicted, and then he found himself experiencing his first romantic relationship, though his first boyfriend turned out to be alternatively helpful and toxic. While coming to work as his manager, John Reid helped John’s career in one way or another, but he was also frequently abusive to John, who had to endure his toxic boyfriend quite a lot during next several years before eventually breaking up with him.

Meanwhile, John also found himself going down into drug addiction after trying cocaine for the first time. To our disappointment, the documentary does not go into much detail on how he came to reach to the bottom of addiction and then started to get clean and sober around the 1990s, but we get a rather amusing episode on when he and John Lennon was surprised by the sudden visit of a certain famous figure while they were pretty high on drug and alcohol.   

John’s friendship with Lennon is certainly another interesting story in John’s life and career, though, again, the documentary does not delve much into this rich material. John was certainly excited when he and Lennon met each other for the first time, and he even helped Lennon to a considerable degree in more than one way. After making a surprise appearance in John’s concert in New York City, Lennon became more active and serious about his life and career than before, though, as many of you know, what could have been another interesting chapter of his was cut short by his tragic death in 1980. 

Overall, “Elton John: Never Too Late”, which recently garnered a Best Song Oscar nomination for John and his several collaborators including Taupin, is rather tame and unfocused while looking like scratching the surface of John’s remarkable life and career, and that is understandable to some degree considering its production background. After all, besides being co-directed by his husband, the documentary is co-produced by his production company Rocket Entertainment, so I was not so surprised to see that it takes a rather mild and conventional approach to its main human subject. Sure, I was not that bored during my viewing, but his life and career deserve more than this, don’t they?