ELVIS (2022)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis" is a 24-carat, gold-studded, immensely entertaining knockout of a rock and roll movie musical. There have been other film adaptations of Elvis Presley's life but this one offers more personal touches and gets deeper, especially the relationship between him and Colonel Tom Parker.
I have to say that while watching the first half-hour of "Elvis," I felt I was being contained and thrown around through a barrage of images that dissolve in and out of each other - basically, I felt cut out of the movie. I love Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge" which was itself a montage movie musical where no shot lasted longer than 3 seconds. I was praying that Luhrmann was not going for that headache-inducing approach which would, I originally thought, not work for someone like Elvis - it could threaten any emotional investment you might have in any character. After a while, though, I was carried along by it because the musical influences on Elvis and the discovery of Elvis as a new singer to contend with kept me happily hooked and I stopped feeling like I was being jerked around from one corner of the frame to the other.
Austin Butler plays Elvis, through the 1950's up until his death, and I first thought he looked nothing like Elvis - Butler looks more like Val Kilmer channeling Elvis. But, once again, even if the looks are a tad dissimilar, the most important aspect is that Butler captures the swagger and no-frills attitude of Elvis. There are moments where time stands still, as in Presley's attempt to sing on stage during the Hank Snow tour. The audience waits, the silence creeps in, and then Elvis starts singing - it is a cliched moment in musical biopics but it still works. He gyrates, vibrates his hips and makes the women go crazy screaming - he's a sexual animal using every muscle below his torso to engineer excitement for the audience and for himself. Elvis's mother is also in attendance and she is more than nonplussed by this, not to mention his strict, money-hungry manager Col. Parker (Tom Hanks, an atypical performance). After Elvis gets permission to sing by having his parents sign the contract (Elvis was still a minor at this point), the world discovers that the man with rock and roll swagger can sing and transport the audience in ways nobody imagined (many at the time, including Parker before he met the King, thought Elvis was black). That swagger and his gyrations were too hot for TV at the time, so Elvis had to dial it down. He had to dial down so much that he was drafted into the Army and was stationed in Germany where he met Priscilla Presley (the reasons he was inducted are not all accurate but it was a method per Parker to illustrate the King as a good old American boy with a crewcut). The rest is history, and his death was far too premature due to imbibing alcohol and every drug prescribed to him under the sun during his Vegas years.
"Elvis" does have its faults, especially in including Elvis' songs performed by others on the soundtrack during Elvis' prime years (to be clear, these play on the soundtrack and not while he's singing). Those cover songs feel like an intrusion though I do love the depiction of black rhythm and blue guitarists and the gospel singers from Tupelo in Elvis's younger years - you can see how young blonde Elvis is immediately entranced and influenced by them (in a church, he seems to collapse in their arms as if possessed which adds to his later Vegas performances where he is similarly possessed). Another issue is that Priscilla Presley (Olivia DeJonge) is introduced as a young girl he dates (though you wouldn't know it from watching that she was in reality a fan) and then, presto, she's his wife and then she disappears for a little while, shows up to calm Elvis during the news of political assassinations, then she is a regular in the audience showing emotional support, and then they get divorced. The movie skims their relationship unlike Elvis' love and affection for his mother (exceedingly well-cast Helen Thomson) - what I love about the mother is she's shown as someone who believes in her famous son despite his wiggle and his energetic gyrations (" The way you sing is God-given, so there can't be nothin' wrong with it."). Of course, we can't have everything when we have an Elvis movie (reportedly there is a 4 hour cut) but I wish the Priscilla relationship was beefed up.
The main focus of "Elvis" is Parker's unending attachment to Elvis to the point of controlling every aspect of his life - he sees Elvis as a money-making machine that can help with Parker's notorious gambling debts. Though Elvis's family claims Parker was a "wonderful man," there is no denying that Parker was a greedy bastard yet Tom Hanks plays him as a lovable loser who goes too far. The scene of Parker's incredulous and emotional reaction through a glass reflection of Elvis singing the glorious "If I Can Dream" at the famous 1968 TV comeback special is something to witness. We still know Parker wants to sweat every cent out of Elvis yet we do get a momentary glimpse of Parker's recognition of the kid's super talents.
"Elvis" is a sonic boom of a movie, a cinematic odyssey of one outstanding flourish of images and colorful montages after another. This is Baz Lurhmann on hyperdrive and not one moment or image feels out of league with the story of the King of Rock N' roll. Even when Baz calms things down, there is a genuine, mystical power in seeing Austin Butler giving every ounce of himself over to the King. The movie is a workout for those who loves stable images and simplified editing but Elvis's life was too haywire to merit too much stability.
