Angie: Bowie movie is not a work of Jean Genius
Star’s ex slams biopic as boring, dull & inaccurate
THE David Bowie biopic has been branded a “boring waste of time” by the star’s first wife Angie.
She says Stardust is “bland” and “more dreary than a onestar documentary”.
Angie, played in the film by Hunger Games star Jena Malone, believes the blame lies with Bowie’s late US publicist.
She claims: “It should be called the Ron Oberman Whingeing and Whining story.”
Angie says Bowie, who died five years ago aged 69, would be aghast at the biopic.
It chronicles his early years in music – before hits like his 1973 classic Jean Genie.
Angie says: “It was a total waste of time. David would never have watched it.
“The only people who would watch it are people who are obsessed with celebrities.”
Director Gabriel Range failed to gain the approval of the singer’s estate or the rights to his discography.
FAILURE
So the biopic relies on other people’s songs that Bowie covered – including tracks by The Yardbirds and Jacques Brel.
Angie, 71 – who famously learned of David’s death while on Celebrity Big Brother – says: “Bowie was a musician. And where was the music?
“It was boring. I didn’t find it entertaining at all. It’s more dreary than a one-star documentary. It was too neutral and bland and without the music, there is nothing.”
Bowie is played by Johnny Flynn. The biopic shows him travelling to America to make it big there – while pregnant Angie stays at their Haddon Hall home in Beckenham, on the outskirts of Bowie’s native South London.
It is 1971, after the commercial failure of The Man Who Sold the World.
According to the movie, Angie confronts David on his return to the UK and accuses him of treating her like a slave.
But Angie says: “That’s not how it was at all. Our marriage wasn’t at breaking point then. That came much later. I wasn’t worried about anything, I was in an extremely good mood.
“I was having a fabulous time in London. I wasn’t on call 24 hours a day.
“The character who plays me says that I wanted David and I to be king and queen but that’s not true.
“I wanted David’s career to be incredible and then I wanted to pursue my directing and acting dreams. I didn’t want to be a queen.”
She also says their bohemian home Haddon Hall was inaccurately depicted.
Angie says: “It was all dark and murky in the film but I remember it being so full of light. And when he went to America, I spent the time painting the walls white.” Bowie was joined by Oberman on the US tour. And Angie believes the film – which in the opening credits is pitched as “mostly fiction” – is mainly focused on Ron’s collected memories. He died in November 2019, aged 76.
Angie says: “Someone must have called him up and taken a lot of notes. They wrote the script from his point of view.”
Bowie is shown taking cocaine – which Angie says is also inaccurate. She says: “Cocaine wasn’t easy to get at that point, that came a lot later in the 70s. But the film focuses a lot on the drugs.
“It just feels like a pastiche and stereotypical.”
The singer’s son Duncan Jones, himself a film-maker, has also attacked the movie on social media.
He said that it would be “up to the audience” if
they wanted to see a film “without his music or the family’s blessing”.
Lead actor Flynn hit back at critics of the movie, which will air as a pay-per-view on web TV services like Amazon Prime.
He said: “People who see the film seem to really like it and I think it does speak for itself.
“I always knew it was going to be a contentious film.
“We made it without the rights to the songs and without working with his estate kind of on purpose because we wanted journalistic integrity and authorial objectivity.”
It was boring, too neutral and bland... more dreary than a one-star documentary ANGIE BOWIE SLAMS BIOPIC ABOUT HER MUSIC LEGEND EX