Director: Baz Luhrmann
Writers: Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, Jeremy Doner
Cast: Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Kelvin Harrison Jr., David Wenham
Runtime: 159 mins.
2022
Surprise surprise, the racial politics of Elvis are reprehensible. One can hardly expect a Hollywood film to damn him* for stealing the music of Black musicians who trailblazed Rock N' Roll without recognition, but the gall of proclaiming Elvis's innocence is made all the worse by the Black characters, actors, and extras all being treated as props. We flash back to a kinetic church revival tent so that the Black congregation can lift a besotted Elvis-child atop their shoulders. We see young adult Elvis drawn to Beale Street, eyes glimmering with wonder. B.B. King shows up just long enough to tell the rising star that he's the only one who'll be allowed to make any money off these songs, so he may as well take them. It's cynicism masquerading as community.
*The film also slickly glides over his grooming of Priscilla Presley, who was 14 when they met.
That cynicism comes to the fore in the character of Col. Tom Parker, Elvis's ultra-predatory financial manager. He is brought to life in one of Tom Hanks' worst performances (although a bad Hanks performance is still pretty good on balance). The film is quite shrewd to anchor the narrative in this old roach's perspective. An impossible needle is threaded thusly: Parker's moustache-twirling villainy becomes the root source of all exploitation, making Elvis himself an entirely passive figure. Austin Butler's portrayal is competent but anonymous; The movie must keep the King at arms' length to protect his mythos. The end result is an Elvis absolved of agency, upon which the audience may project anything they please, be it bitter resentment or starry admiration. So much for this botched opportunity to revise the Elvis legend for the 2020s.
