I actually got asked by a friend if I had gone back into my hidey-hole where I often go when COVID rates go up since I hadn’t reviewed a new movie over the weekend two weeks ago. No, something else happened: good weather. One of my favorite summertime activities is reading on my apartment’s balcony, but the weather had been too cool, wet, windy, or some combination of such for a while. As such, when the weather was actually nice enough for balcony reading, I opted to stay home and do that instead of seeing two movies that I had heard a lot of really good buzz about, namely The Black Phone and Elvis. I also had some time off coming up, so I figured I would wait. Then I got what was basically a private showing of Elvis for a Tuesday matinee. Not a bad deal. I’ll probably see The Black Phone before the week is out, but company coming over means I have no idea when the Thor: Love and Thunder review is coming.
Oh, there’s no way in hell I am going to a movie theater to see the Minions. I try to see as much as possible, but I do draw the line sometimes., and those yellow things are very much something I have no desire to see.
I knew going into Elvis two things: Baz Luhrmann in the director’s chair would make this a, let’s say, unique cinematic experience, and he might be a very good choice for this sort of story. As it is, his usual flashy, music-video influenced directorial style is all over this movie, but it does work for a musical biopic, plus Elvis Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie has endorsed the movie as capturing her father’s spirit. That sort of endorsement doesn’t seem to happen as often as it probably should, but it does help for someone like me.
Regardless, the movie itself is actually pretty good, and as I said, Luhrmann is a good fit for this movie. The movie opens with a lot of shots and clips of one of Elvis’s Vegas shows before bringing in Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks speaking in a weird accent that will make sense eventually if you know nothing about the real Colonel Tom Parker). After a health scare, Parker breaks the fourth wall to explain that he never bilked Elvis in any way even if he was taking 50% of Presley’s income. He says he was Elvis’s partner, and it was a partnership built off his original profession as a “snowman,” the guy who brings the audience to see the performer. Parker learned his trade working for various carnivals, and while working as a manager for a prominent country act, he hears about this rising star Elvis Presley (Austin Butler). Elvis grew up in a mixed race neighborhood in poverty while his father was in prison for writing a bad check, and while growing up, Elvis developed a real appreciation for African American music and style, particularly R&B and Gospel. Parker talks Elvis into becoming the future King’s manager, and from there, Elvis’s career takes off.
That said, the movie makes it clear that this has very little to do with Parker. He may have gotten Elvis’s foot in the door, but whenever Elvis is in a bad emotional place for a large portion of the movie, it’s isn’t Colonel Tom who gives him the necessary advice to get out of it. It often comes when Elvis talks to people who truly care about him, and Parker is clearly not that person. That said, it isn’t above Parker’s general sense of decency, if he even has any, to take credit for things he didn’t do, and the longer the movie runs, the more it suggests Parker’s instincts and ideas are very wrong. And even when Elvis does listen to Parker and things work out, it just makes Elvis miserable.
What makes this movie work is it is a celebration of not just Elvis, but also the music Elvis loved. He’s friends with B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison Jr) and even takes in a show by Little Richard (Alton Mason). Elvis himself has a conscience and he cares very much about a great many things, things Parker tries to keep him from doing, but he usually does them anyway, and Butler plays the role with some real gusto. The movie hits all the highlights of Elvis’s life, moments even people like myself aren’t that familiar with but still know about, such as his controversial hip motions, time in the Army, marriage to Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge), and the comeback special. Quite frankly, I found the last scene with Priscilla downright heartbreaking, largely because I knew even if the characters didn’t that it probably was a last scene between them.
And then there’s Hanks, in a rare villain role, the bad guy who doesn’t think he’s a bad guy. He’s a slimy, shifty man who got his hooks into a naive young man and knew how to keep them there, all while never acknowledging he’s doing wrong.
That said, as much as I liked this movie, I don’t think I will ever love a Baz Luhrmann movie. This may be the best movie of his I have seen, possibly because I saw it in a theater instead of at home where I am more easily distracted, but his work is just a little too busy for my tastes. As a celebration of the man and his music, ending with the tragedy of his death, it is a fine movie, but it’s not quite a great one.
Grade: B+
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