“Elvis”: A modern morality tale

According to Baz Luhrmann‘s new biopic Elvis, the protagonist (uncanny Austin Butler) was a falling angel, self-styled Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) was Satan and Hell is Las Vegas. Such is the narrative trajectory of this epic, which ends with Elvis Presley as an obese, pill-popping slave to a degenerate gambler’s spending habits. Luhrmann (who directed, co-wrote and co-produced the film) also addresses the elephant in the room, Presley’s appropriation and mainstreaming of African American music, positing Presley as the spiritual love child of a union between Black sexuality and spirituality, hence the shuddering—and much fixated-upon groin from which Elvis’ celebrity supposedly sprang. Having his cake and eating it too, Luhrmann also portrays Presley as a trailblazing civil rights icon, whose closest confidant is B.B. King. It’s a bit much, and the issues of Presley and racial politics are handled much more deftly (and humorously) in the stage musical All Shook Up! The latter has also played Vegas a couple of times and is highly recommended.

As indicated, young Mr. Butler is a virtual double for Elvis, capturing not only the look and attitude but—and this is far more difficult—the mystique of the man. He’s a remarkable discovery. To say that he holds his own with Tom Hanks is an inadequate compliment. That is because you can hardly take your eyes of Hanks, a roly-poly Mephistopheles who looks for all the world like Sidney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon. We have come to expect the exceptional from Hanks, probably the greatest living screen actor, yet he goes above and beyond that as Parker. Most of the other players are denatured Australians playing Americans with unconvincing affect but at least the recreation of Seventies Vegas is so amazingly believable that it provides much compensation. Elias Ghanem, Presley’s Johnny-on-the-shot, is present as a “Dr. Nick” (“Old Nick” being a euphemism for the devil) and Kirk Kerkorian is posthumously libeled as the mobbed-up casino owner “Meyer Kohn.”

All that being said, this is Luhrmann’s most coherent film in decades, perhaps even since his masterpiece, Strictly Ballroom. He has rediscovered heart and the film draws us in because Luhrmann allows it to take its time, a refreshing break from his latter-day habit of directing every scene like the climax. (Which is why some of hear “Baz Luhrmann” and run in the opposite direction, pardon the pun.) And it seems to be his definitive statement on his love/hate relationship with Sin City, although it still doesn’t come knee-high to Martin Scorsese‘s Casino. (Scorsese on Presley? Now there’s the greatest musical never made.) The big takeaway from Elvis is of a great talent wasted in pursuit of money. Is that history’s verdict too? See it and decide for yourself.