Film Review — Elvis
Austin Butler stuns as the King in Baz Luhrmann’s flamboyantly entertaining biopic.
Baz Luhrmann films are often divisive, provoking a Marmite-style love/hate divide. I am firmly in the former category. Romeo + Juliet is astounding. Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge! are among my all-time favourites. His much-derided take on The Great Gatsby is also massively underrated, in a Baz-Luhrmann-remix sort of way. I even enjoyed the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink Australia.
Elvis is a Luhrmann film through and through, employing rapid-fire editing, dream sequences, animation, swooping camera moves, and deliberately anachronistic music, whilst rattling along at a cracking pace with his singular flamboyance and style. Those who enjoy his schtick will doubtless find much to entertain here, especially those who are also fans of Elvis Presley (brilliantly portrayed here by Austin Butler). The film thunders through Presley’s entire life, but is told through the eyes of his manager, the notorious Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). In flashback, Parker speaks of how history painted him as the villain in the Elvis story and seeks to refute that claim. But Luhrmann makes him the villain nonetheless; especially highlighting Parker’s merciless financial exploitation of his star to fund his gambling debts, and how he kept Elvis tied to Las Vegas…
