To put it plainly; where the hell does one start with a film like Elvis? A film so genuinely confounding at moments that it leads one to giggle and laugh, despite being in a cinema with only two other people – one of which was asleep the whole time, the other kept telling the attendant helping her that “she saw Elvis live five times!” I think I would like to first discuss another film; Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story – a spoof of the music biopic so pitch perfect in every way and of such a high quality that it begs belief of how a music biopic can now 15 years later be recreating scenes from Walk Hard and still falling into the same cookie-cutter mould of the rest of these films. I mean this quite literally has two scenes in it (the sexual reaction to Elvis and Elvis watching in awe of the more ‘scandalous’ African American clubs) that are without over-exaggeration composed and edited and acted with near the exact same level of absurdity as Jake Kasdan’s brilliant comedic masterpiece. Except one of these is a spoof and the other is supposed to be a sincere music biopic, which brings us to our first figure I would like to discuss, Mr Baz Luhrman.
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Baz Luhrman is truly one of a kind and is an auteur in every sense of the word; his frenetic visuals, his compulsion to maximilism above all else, his obsession with modernising the past in bizarre ways on film (mainly musically), and his relentless resistance to cut a film below 2 hours... has all led to Elvis. A film that revels in broad strokes, that laughs in the face of realism, that compels a viewer with any basic knowledge of the history of Elvis Presley to dismiss rhyme and reason and be taken on a bombastic ride where entire pivotal stretches of the artists careers are spanned over the course of a minute or so and whole arcs are fabricated and music is distorted, remixed and replayed to make for one of the most heady and- I think the best term would be hedonistically sensorial (and yes, I am proud of that) – watches of the year. This has one major advantage, it really does convey the feeling of being their live, and not in a bullsh*t Bohemian Rhapsody kind of way, where exact movements are mirrored for ease for YouTube videos, here we can feel the music and we can feel what it must have been like to be in those places at those times. Then... well, there are all the disadvantages this brings. Mainly that this a cradle to the grave story that despite taking 2hr and 40mins to tell it’s tale, tells everything in broad strokes, flashes or extended fabricated sequences focussing on people that you never thought in your wildest dreams you’d be spending as much time as you are doing with in an movie about Elvis. Everybody in the ensemble is game however for Luhrman’s manic approach to telling this tale and I think one comes to terms with what the nature of this beast is very soon, and so any annoyances that it’s not telling a truthful version of events are quickly put to the back of your mind, because it’s obvious from the off that that is just not what this film is going for. If the film was just a story of his performances then this would be absolutely fine as an approach, but it is of course not that. The film attempts to touch on bigger themes, particularly racially and with the darker addictive side of Presley’s life, however with this break-neck and broad-strokes approach, one just can’t help but feel that any attempt at commentary falls horribly flat, or at times, sadly even laughable. Again one can’t help but think of Walk Hard in every one of these situations.
Then there is the other key figures when talking about this film, these two key figures just so happen to be the two male leads and the film’s biggest advantage and by far one the biggest disadvantages a film has had in a long time. Let’s talk advantages... The reason you want to see the film really is of course Austin Butler as Elvis Presley, by far one of the easiest Thomas Carruthers Award nominations I have given this year so far (with the note of course that I have seen an awful lot less films than normal). Butler is insanely good in this, he really is every bit as good as everybody says. He is believable at every age over the course of the life spanning film, his miming and blending vocally is entirely believable and wholly effective and when he does sing you can feel the truth and richness of the vocal, it may very well be one of the best physical performances of this decade with a bravura, dance quality, charisma and sexiness that really rivals the best we’ve had on screen. Butler is an absolute sensation and deserves all the acclaim he will get. Then there’s Tom Hanks. Icon Tom Hanks. Now if you asked a hundred people to say what they knew about Elvis Presley, many would after a while probably mention Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s long-time nefarious manager. However if you asked a hundred film-makers to make a film about Elvis Presley, one of the most famous figures of all time, I very much doubt that many would come up with the concept (that I’m sure they thought was an ingenious idea) to have the film be narrated, bookended and significantly focus upon Parker as an unreliable figure. Now sure, when I write that down I can see a more complex version of the film we got with a more nuanced approach to the depiction of the relationship, along with perhaps even Elvis as a background figure in his own story, the way that Parker would indeed see it. But this film is not that. It is Tom Hanks with an outrageous accent, bawdy latex work and a villainous absurdist performance that may very well be his worst of all time. The writing and direction of this film flounders in every way with this specific choice and it really is one of the worst decisions I’ve seen in a major film ever. Never have I seen a film absolutely knock its own legs out, like this before. So much time is focussed with Hanks as Parker, it genuinely boggles the mind. My big question is how can we spend so much time with Hanks and then have the actual death of the figure of Elvis feel rushed? The film is not called Colonel Tom Parker, although after watching it, one can’t help but feel it should be. I genuinely was stood up to go for a bathroom break thinking we had forty minutes left when the newspaper faded up on screen; “Elvis dead”, and don’t give me any cr*p about how his death was sudden in real life, of course it was - but this is not intentionality, this is just poor pacing and bizarre plotting.
I would like now to make two addendums regarding my above points...
1.
‘But Tom
you always talk about how Bradley Cooper in Star is Born was way better than
Rami Malleck as Freddie Mercury, mainly because of how Cooper did his own
singing!’ Well, I would still say Cooper is better than Butler performance
wise for this chief reason, however Butler is better than Malleck for so many
reasons. For me Malleck was not only a shallow caricature but was also very
clearly miming to me, which is its own talent. Also physically Butler’s
performance excelled expenentiuonally over Malleck. And also maybe I’m naive
and maybe I just liked this film a lot better, but the media narrative press
release about the ‘blending of the actors voice with the real figure and
impersonators’ feels genuinely true here, especially in the earlier
performances. Whereas for me with Malleck it all just felt so clearly mimed and
bland. If anything this film has made me hate Rhapsody even more, and yes, like always, love Cooper in Star is Born that bit more too.
2.
‘But Tom,
you loved Jared Letto in House of Gucci and that was another latex mess, broad
and ridiculous European cartoon character’. Well, yes... expect in that
film it had a purpose, whether you liked it or not, that character fitted
perfectly for me as this insane Fredo figure as the bastard child of the
family. Here the cartoonish stuff just comes off as making a real life man a
cartoon villain (Yes, I know Gucci was a real person too). All of this is
personal opinion of course, but Hanks just landed like a lead balloon
every-time, and every time we cut away from Elvis and return to this monster of
a performance we are reminded what film Luhrman has ended up making. With Letto
every-time he came on screen I got a little excited, rather than dreading it. I
sincerely have every understanding that was nowhere near everybody’s
experiences with that character or that film.
Undeniably a film more around 6/10 than anything higher, however one just can’t not help but feel enamoured by the relentless vision of Luhrman and the immense talent of Butler. It’s a heady combination and it’s undeniably overly long (when it comes to how that time is actually used), it’s moments of absurdity are frequent and it’s bombastic nature is at times even overwhelming. But... it is entertaining. For me that was one of those undeniable things. Is it a thing of perfection or great quality? Absolutely not. Did it feel overlong? Yes, it did. But was I ever bored? Not really. Does that negate my previous question, weirdly I think not – but now we are getting into semantics and boring facts, and if there is one thing that clearly does not interest Luhrman it is the facts. Never in all my life of biopics have I never felt the urge to check up on anything after, from the off you just sort of realise that is not the truth and in many ways deeply far from it. In many ways Steven Knights note before Spencer comes to mind; ‘a fable from a true tragedy’. This is not the facts, it’s a feeling and when Luhrman is on fire, which he often is and when Butler is on fire, which he always is – this film does then and again soar. Is Hanks one of the worst and most baffling things I’ve seen this year thus far...? I mean what the hell were these people thinking?
P.S. Kodi Sitt-Mcphee’s cowboy character here has the arc that his inner self in Power of the Dog wanted to have. Yes, I would watch Elvis again before I rewatch Power of the Dog. No shade, but I guess, a little shade.
P.P.S. Am I going insane or did Luhrman fit a brief section of Backstreet Boys’s Everybody into the movie montage? It was definitely in there, why? Just another baffling choice. Also when it comes to bizarre things, having Elvis talk to the ghost of a blues legend and saying “I’m sorry Miss Jackson” with complete sincerity may be one of the most bizarre attempts at music through the eras commentary (I think) I have ever seen. And if instead it just slipped past everybody, then how the hell did it slip past everybody?
P.P.S. This has been my longest review in a while, if that means one thing to you, it should be whether it’s good or bad, it’s worth watching! Trust me!
- - Thomas Carruthers
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