Elvis Is A Hip-Shaking Testament To ‘The King,’ Backed By An Electric Central Performance

Film and literary history are replete with examples of corruptors, nefarious characters who seek to gain their way by trickery, treachery, and manipulation for one end or another. From Lady Macbeth to Melkor, Palpatine to Stephen King’s Man in Black, Satan to Mara, many of these figures have tempted even the greatest of heroes and a number have even conquered. In Elvis, this archetype takes the form of real-life Elvis promotor/manager ‘Colonel Tom Parker’, and it’s easiest to understand the film in this lens. In this case, as we all tragically know, the ‘hero’ falls. It’s a stylish biopic with a stunning performance by Austin Butler, one that hip-shakes its way just successfully enough to overcome some of the film’s otherwise relevant issues.

Elvis chronicles the rise to fame, life, and fall of one Elvis Presley (an electric and transformed Austin Butler), a singer so thoroughly ingrained in U.S. pop culture history that, for the broadest strokes, he doesn’t need explaining. He meets Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), a mysterious Dutch promoter who latches himself on to Presley’s rising star and gradually comes to control the singer’s life. We watch Elvis fall in love with Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge), get corralled into his fateful Vegas residency, and fall into habits that spelled his tragic doom.

Luhrmann has style to spare here, and the whole film is positively loaded with it—color, swift edits and camera movement, meta moments and style shifts, and the occasional pop of modern music. It makes the long film a breezy watch (for the most part) despite the film’s long duration. The exception here is in the Vegas portion of the film, where the pace slows considerably alongside some scenes that feel, frankly, more than a little redundant.

The emphasis on style does come with a catch, however, as the swift pace and editing shortchange and all-too-easily slide by genuinely important parts of Elvis’ life (yet we seemingly see parts of every single Vegas performance). For example, Elvis’ mother is lost to alcoholism in a major turn for the character, but the quick cuts through that portion of the film make it feel like a factoid being yelled by a character running through the door (aka “yourmomisdeadokaythanksbye!!!”). The film is positively loaded with scenes that should have a little more breathing room (in a couple instances, cuts happened immediately following important lines, as though Elvis couldn’t be bothered to slog through them).

The best part of the film by a longshot is Austin Butler’s supernova-making turn as the titular singer. His performance has complexity, emotion, and so much charisma that it drives the film forward almost despite itself. While there are certain weaknesses, Butler’s performance distracts from nearly all of them in one of the most memorable performances of the year so far. It’s also worth noting that DeJonge is a great (albeit underused) Priscilla—she’s great in every scene she’s in despite being very underutilized.

The biggest issue here is the curious choice to tell the film through the perspective of Tom Hanks’ Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’ promoter/manager and the driver of Elvis’ downfall (at least as the film tells it). Buried beneath the prosthetics and accent of an Austin Powers villain, Hanks does sell Parker’s manipulative-snake-oil-salesman vibes, but it’s enhanced to the point of campy caricature between the accent, sometimes odd line delivery, and odd narrative framing choices (like having Parker talk to the audience from, what, an ethereal slot machine floor?).

Beyond the oddities of Hanks’ performance, it’s even stranger that the film tells the story through Parker’s narration and, to a degree, perspective. It forces a focus on Elvis’ interactions with Parker and his professional life, which makes sense in the context of portraying Elvis’ downfall and Parker’s role in it but it also cuts off potential to explore a number of other relevant factors in the life of ‘the King’. We see relatively little of Priscilla. Some important or memorable characters drop off the face of the film’s Earth (Jimmie Rodgers Snow and Steve Binder as just two examples). Lisa Marie is barely on screen.

Elvis’ life tawdrier choices, as portrayed, are shown as a result of his drug-induced downfall (and limited to ‘cheating’), when his life was far more complex in aspects than seen here. For example, his meeting with Priscilla really slides by the fact that Elvis was 24 years old and Priscilla was 14, an age difference smuggled in perhaps an hour later when the pair split and he claims to expect their reuniting when “you’re 40 and I’m 50”—what an adeptly smuggled recognition. All of these odd slides and omissions are the result of the very peculiar choice of focusing the film through Parker’s insidious lens.

Altogether, Elvis is a breezy, overall engaging tour through one lens of Elvis’ influential life. Some choices seriously threaten to derail the project, and at best they’re curious ones—but if one can get past their deleterious effect on the story’s potential, it’s a good time. Most important to note is that Austin Butler shines so brightly in the role that it’s easy to see why The King had such an electric impact on American culture… Butler’s an unequivocal star here, and if the film’s legacy rests mainly on the gravity of one blue suede performance it’s in good hands (er, on good hips?) here.

Elvis releases in theaters June 24th, 2022.