Elvis (2022)

(On Cable TV, September 2022) Seldom has there been a better match of subject matter and filmmaker than seeing Baz Luhrman take no less than the King of Rock and Roll himself Elvis Presley in the newest entry in his too-sparse filmography. The first few minutes are classic Lurhman—nestled flashbacks and visual effects sequences almost acting as a trailer for its own movie, flashing back and forth between the beginning of the relationship between Presley and his manager “Colonel Tom Parker” (who acts as the film’s narrator). It’s all stylized, outrageous, over-the-top and visually inventive—exactly the introduction needed for fans of the director to settle back and enjoy a too-rare Luhrman extravaganza. True to form (see his previous films), Elvis settles down slightly after that—even if it picks up from time to time for some showcase sequences. It all makes the biopic a lot of fun to watch even if the broad outlines and specific details of Elvis’ story are well-known to many. Tom Hanks hams it up as Parker in a thick southern drawl, but it’s Austin Butler who’s most surprising here, delivering an Elvis that’s certainly not a carbon copy of the historical figure but nonetheless works well at evoking the man. In the jukebox-musical tradition, the use of familiar songs to evoke specific emotional moments usually works well, the best being the use of “Trouble” to illustrate the civil-rights era. While this may not be the best Elvis biopic on substance (and skips over some fascinating tangents, such as his relationship with Nixon), it tackles some material more at ease in contemporary discourse—including the appropriation of black music by a white performer and the power of merchandizing over art. You can make a case that the film is (ironically) too glitzy and stylish to delve too deeply into the man behind the jumpsuits—but then again, this is a Luhrman film (only his sixth!), and it had been nine years since his previous ones. The result was worth the wait: this is exactly what we could have expected from “Elvis, a Baz Luhrman film.”