Elvis ★★★★
IT MAY not be the definitive story of The King’s life, but Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis stunningly captures the spirit of the man and his cultural impact.
In particular the Australian director does a fantastic job of documenting the key influences and moments in history that in turn influenced Elvis’s style of music and delivery.
I’m not talking about the re-creation of key performances, which are terrifically staged in themselves. It’s the lead-up to each of these performances that makes this film stand out in Luhrmann’s almost unique catalogue
The lead-up to a defining moment on stage at a county fair early in Elvis’s career is prefaced by a collection of scenes focusing on his discovery as a young boy of both the redemptive and physical powers of music amongst the people of colour he grew up with.
The moment when Elvis takes to the stage at an outdoor concert during some of the worst days of race segregation and intolerance is deepened by tension created during the lead-up amid an FBI crackdown on his performances.
The structure of a comeback television Christmas special is framed by the tensions between the performer and his enigmatic, long-time manager Colonel Tom Parker and the reaction of Elvis and others close to him to the public assassination of civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King.
And, of course, the fall-out of the performer/manager relationship and Elvis’s deepening personal crises due to various abuses, paranoia and a failed marriage, all culminate in extraordinarily moving final performances in Las Vegas.
Luhrmann is known for his idiosyncratic and flashy directorial style and visuals, but Elvis is much more than that, perhaps his most emotionally satisfying film.
In his first major cinema role, Austin Butler is extremely good in the lead role, certainly head and shoulders above many other attempts to capture the man’s essence and charisma.
As the Colonel, Tom Hanks is less successful, sometimes leaning a little too far into a comic interpretation. But there are certainly some good moments for him as well in a difficult role in which he is most definitely written as the villain of the story.
The first 90 minutes of Elvis provides some of the most exhilarating, big cinema moments I’ve seen so far in 2022. The final act of the film doesn’t match that intensity and drive, but that may also be partly due to the more melancholy nature of the story as Elvis the man and performer starts to wind down.
Even then, the climax includes that great re-creation of one of his final performances at the piano in Vegas.
Definitely see this one at a cinema. It rivals Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet as Baz’s best.