Baz Luhrmann is known for his glitz and his glamour in his selected filmography. The sex-appeal of Romeo + Juliet, the campiness of Moulin Rouge and the pop music soundtrack of The Great Gatsby are all pivotal examples of how Baz loves adding a sense of style to his films. You’re probably expecting me to say that he prefers style over substance but that’s not true, in fact he is known for creating rather lengthy films. It sometimes works in his favour like with Australia which feels like an epic film about class and culture, but there are other films where length isn’t as necessary. With his latest film Elvis, it is like he’s an outsider taking a peek at the Rock Icon’s internal life in an extended look at the singer’s short-lived life.
Elvis has a lot going for it, especially in an age with a lot of biopics centred around iconic figures in the music industry. With films such as Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody still fresh in the general audience’s mind, you might be forgiven to expect the same with Elvis, whereas in fact, this film feels very different. Austin Butler stars as the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, and I will admit that whoever cast him did a fabulous job as they found a young actor with a very bright future ahead of him. Butler has the charm, the charisma and the essence of the acclaimed singer to a point that you really believe this is what Elvis was like. Butler completely steals the movie, and rightly so as it is an Elvis movie after all, but unfortunately, the co-lead Colonel Parker, as played by Tom Hanks, spends a lot of time in the spotlight too, a bit too much time though.
The film opens with an exposition voiced by Hanks’ Colonel Parker about how he created Elvis we know and love but unfortunately, that makes Parker become an unreliable narrator. We hear and witness events for the majority of the film from Parker’s perspective. He is hypnotised by Elvis’ power to take hold of an audience, to woo the women and to take control of the spotlight with such ease that the character of Elvis almost feels mythical to him. Hanks is a tremendous actor but you do kind of wish there was more focus on Mr Presley and less time with the man pulling the strings.
The film travels across various points of Elvis’ life, from his first introduction to music all the way to his final days performing in Las Vegas, with a snippet of time with his wife Priscilla in the film too. So you can probably imagine that there is a lot material for the filmmakers to include within the film, but they manage to condense it down to the point where it never feels rushed or dragged out. That is in part thanks to the magnetism of Butler’s performance. The music is a stand-out too with some of Elvis’ selected classics getting used dominantly at key moments in his life, as well as some remixed modern versions of his songs in there too which has become a staple for Baz’s filmography. This helps keep the film feel fresh and different from other biopics too.
The showbiz lifestyle of Elvis was certainly extraordinary, especially in an age where there was much less of a media-centric focus on celebritydom. So to see the film document his highs and lows with a sensitive eye is rather revealing for a man who we only really knew from time as an actor and also from archived footage from his past concerts. It’s also to Butler’s talent that he manages to show the inner struggles going on with some simple facial expressions before and after his performances, further making Elvis feel like a person instead of a character.
★★★☆☆
3/5
Elvis is a hugely entertaining film, and it manages to avoid feeling like one of those jukebox films where there is song after song. Tom Hanks feels like a distraction and a hinderance in telling the story even if that was the point the filmmakers were trying to make as that is essentially what Colonel Parker was to the rock icon. It’s not a raw biopic like Rocketman or an introspective one like Bohemian Rhapsody, but instead it feels different and it stands on its own above the rest. It honours the legacy of Mr Presley with grace and sensitivity, and it will more than likely become the quintessential cinematic experience of what Elvis was like behind closed doors.
Thanks for reading today’s blog!
Alex Murray, the Head of Eyesight Productions
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