Elvis

I put off watching 2022's ELVIS as I was certain Baz Luhrmann had turned the life of the master showman into another of his hyperactive ADD fests.  Another two hour plus trailer.  A style that I sometimes dig yet just as often abhor.  MOULIN ROUGE was fun, sure, but exhausting and quickly forgotten.  I can't speak for THE GREAT GATSBY or AUSTRALIA.  The man has energy and talent, and when he allows his films to breathe, as he did with WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO AND JULIET back in '96, we get the substance to match the flash.

Thankfully, the same can be said of ELVIS, especially in its second half.  When the singer's excesses and poor decisions got the better of him.  I was curious as to how Baz would handle those scenes, which could've easily become tawdry and exploitive, even if they accurately reflected the bloated decline of the King.  Instead, the director - who co-wrote with Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, and Jeremy Doner - gives his subject, very well played by Austin Butler, some attention and space, not so eager to dolly the camera and cut to something in the peripheries.  

But there's plenty of that as well.   I often joke of directors' ASLs (Average Shot Lengths) and Baz Luhrmann's may be some of the shortest in Hollywood.  For this film he unleashes his usual full throttle stylistics, and not just during the concert sequences (which are fantastic).  As the film recounts Presley's life from boyhood to his sad end at the age of forty-two, scene after scene plays like a memory fragment.  At times maddeningly incomplete.  Here, it makes sense as the story is told through the eyes of Elvis' notorious manager Colonel Parker (Tom Hanks), who narrates from a hospital bed just before his death in 1997.  An insane rush of a life passing before his eyes.

For some viewers, this was a mistake.  Parker being an unreliable narrator and chareltan whose point of view is sure to be suspect.  But if the events in ELVIS are to be taken as Parker's recollections, he damns himself as well.  We get a pretty good sketch of the man who emigrated illegally from the Netherlands and changed his name.  Tellingly beginning his career as a carnival promoter.  One night in '55 he witnesses Elvis' wildly swaying hips and swooning audience members during a show (a great sequence, btw) and realizes his eventual meal ticket.  Many weren't pleased with Hanks' performance, but despite his tendency toward self aware bluster, I thought he was fine.

Butler makes Elvis appealingly human and accessible.  Even if he doesn't entirely capture this complex man - perhaps due to Luhrmann's restlessness - it is a dedicated, go for broke performance that is more than mere dazzle.  Never caricature.  Plenty of soul. 

P.S. - The use of contemporary music, interspersed with Elvis tunes, worked better than expected.