Review
DULCIE PEARCE
Elvis film review: Baz Luhrmann’s high tempo, flamboyant take on Elvis Presley’s life will leave you all shook up
ELVIS
12A (159mins)
★★★★☆
GET ready to be all shook up by this high tempo, ferociously flamboyant take on Elvis Presley’s life.
Similar to Baz Luhrmann’s direction of The Great Gatsby and Romeo and Juliet, the first half hour barely lets you blink.
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It kicks off with a high speed spin through the first 20 years of Elvis’ life that makes you feel as though you’ve eaten too many E numbers and then visited the circus.
All with a huge dollop of glitz, glamour and decadence sprinkled on top.
There’s a young Elvis, growing up dirt poor, peeping through the curtains at a black evangelical church of the deep-south.
He’s hypnotised by the music as though it takes over his soul and is heavily influenced by the beats that he uses in his own music.
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For this, he is ostracised by the white community and feels like no one understands him and his talent.
But someone does.
And sadly for Elvis, that is Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks under a mountain of prosthetics), a grotesquely obese country music promoter who needs to make money fast, due to spiralling gambling debts.
He soon travels to Memphis to present Elvis’ parents with a contract and to sweet-talk them into signing him as the exclusive manager.
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Meaning he takes 50 per cent, forever.
This is where ELVIS really finds its, often thrusting, legs.
The pace evens out and everything suddenly becomes very watchable indeed.
A lot of this due to an extraordinary performance from Austin Butler, who should be crowned the King of Elvis impersonators.
While not only portraying a convincing likeness, he – like a young Elvis – is a simply beautiful creature to watch.
Hypnotic and somehow different from the rest of us.
In a scene where he gyrates and thrusts on stage for the first time in front of an audience, the women of the 1950s are shocked by their carnal reactions.
But watching him now, it’s totally understandable. Even in 2022.
Despite the gift of a vast soundtrack of Elvis songs, some modern tunes are sprinkled in, which jars and feels unnecessary.
Luhrmann’s portrayal of Elvis’ story is certainly a rose tinted one, with Colonel Parker being the only villain and Presley – who started dating a 14 year old Pricilla when he was 24 – as a saint.
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But that aside, you can’t help falling in love with this shake, rattle and roll through the life of the biggest star the world has ever seen.
- ELVIS is in cinemas on June 24th.
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