Elton John's half brother, who has long been estranged from the rock legend, gives a thumbs down to the bio-pic Rocketman.
Geoff Dwight says the film inaccurately portrays their father. He tells Britain's Daily Mail, "That's not the Dad I remember... This coldness is a million miles away from what [he] was like."
One of four sons from Stanley Dwight's second marriage gives his father a pass since "he was a product of a time when men didn’t go around hugging each other and showing their feelings every minute of the day, but he had plenty of love in him for all of us."
Geoff's biggest complaint is about a scene in which Elton claims his father returned home from an overseas assignment and demanded dinner instead of racing upstairs for a reunion with his son. In the film, the young Reg Dwight is shown heartbroken, waiting for his father at the top of the stairs. That memory is later referenced in therapy sessions that infer Elton's substance issues stemmed from feeling unloved.
While not quite placing Stanley Dwight alongside Joan Crawford as a parent-from-hell, the film shows him as cold and scornful of his son's talent and dreams. Geoff does not remember him that way. "Dad had a big heart and he loved us all equally. He was incredibly proud of Elton and everything that he achieved."