Elvis

Elvis is a biopic about one of the greatest entertainers in history, Elvis Aaron Presley, The King of Rock and Roll. It spans his 23-year-long career, beginning moments after his discovery in 1954 and ending with his tragic death in August 1977.

Elvis

Elvis is a visual masterpiece with some of the most amazing cinematography and scene transitions that I’ve seen since…Moulin Rouge (another Baz Luhrmann musical), which is actually its greatest strength and weakness. Every shot, every camera angle, the lighting, every scene’s composition, all of it is meticulous and beyond anything that any other director is doing nowadays. Lurhman masterfully captures the frenzied whirlwind of Elvis’s rise and fall and makes you feel like you’re on the verge of having a panic attack from the moment that Elvis is having his first panic attack all the way to his death.

Regrettably, in Luhrmann’s successful attempt at making high art, he placed a barrier between the audience and Elvis, played by Austin Butler, making it challenging to connect with the characters on any level other than that of The King’s sense of isolation and being overwhelmed. This is probably the feeling that Luhrmann was going for, but it’s too much and too fast. So what we end up with feels more like a 2-hour 40-minute montage rather than a cohesive story. This is truly a shame because (back when the world was sane and The Academy Awards were merit-based) Butler could have easily won an Oscar and become a household name with this performance.

UPDATE: Butler did, in fact, win the Oscar for his performance

Simply put, he is amazing. There are several moments in the film when Elvis suddenly takes charge of the stage, and Butler is mesmerizingly electrifying. His ability to capture The King’s grandeur without treating him like a caricature was only marred by Luhrmann’s ADD. In many ways, Butler’s performance reminded me of Joaquin Phoenix in Joker, not because there are any similarities between the characters or the films, but because, in that film, Joaquin acts with his entire body and with such authenticity. Between the beats of a hummingbird’s wings and with total sincerity, his eyes, his body, and his entire demeanor would change, and Butler is like that in this movie. One moment, he’s so nervous that you think he might faint, in the next, we see/feel him find something within that has to get out, and he explodes. There were moments that I, like the teen girls at Elvis’s concerts, nearly threw my underpants at the screen, and I’m a straight guy.

In the movie’s only relationship that’s given any time to breathe and develop, if only slightly, Tom Hanks plays Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk (aka Colonel Tom Parker), Elvis’s manager. Parker is a Dutch immigrant and carnival promoter who immediately sees Elvis’s potential as well as all of the weaknesses with which he can manipulate him. He’s a shrewd and conniving man who serves himself to the detriment and, ultimately, the early death of his meal ticket.

Hanks, of course, puts in his usual stellar performance, no small feat since he’s buried under heavy prosthetics and a fat suit throughout the film. However, I, like many, found his accent to be distracting, especially in the beginning. That being said, this is Tom friggin Hanks we’re talking about, so I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and suspend my disbelief for the duration of the picture. Afterward, however, I leaped headfirst down the YouTube rabbit hole. Apparently, Parker would speak with either a southern accent or his native Dutch, depending on the situation. Â As you can hear in the following clip that I found, Hanks sounds within the ballpark of the real thing. It was probably a wise decision to stick to a single accent throughout. In a movie that seemed to only incidentally allow any character development, and jumps from one scene to the next faster than a middle-aged barfly jumps from bed to bed, it would have been far more confusing for Parker to suddenly shift accents without sufficient time to explain.

There’s a handful of other characters in the film who aren’t worth mentioning, not because they were performed poorly, but quite the opposite. Everyone gives a great performance, but as I’ve already mentioned, we aren’t given enough time to care.

As a whole, I really liked this film. It had some warts, but the craftsmanship exhibited alone is nearly enough to forgive them.

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