The enticing combination of showman director Baz Luhrmann covering the life of the showman-extraordinaire singer/actor Elvis Presley made the new musical biopic “Elvis,” one of our most-anticipated new movies of 2022.
Maximalist filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, who abhors visual restraint and instead opts for grand theatricality, should be the perfect creator for a Presley biopic, but isn’t. Luhrmann tells us this icon’s story from the perspective of the singer’s longtime, crooked manager Colonel Tom Parker. After collapsing in his tacky, memorabilia-filled office, a near-death Parker awakens alone in a Las Vegas hospital room. The papers have labeled him a crook, a cheat who took advantage of Elvis, so he must set the record straight.
The ghoulish, garish production design by Catherine Martin, Luhrmann’s wife and longtime creative partner, and Karen Murphy, is full of carnival sleaze and Vegas vulgarity. All that satin and rhinestone, filtered through Mandy Walker’s pulpy, red-dominated cinematography, conjures an atmosphere of lurid, frenzied eroticism.
Presley family response
Family members felt the biopic reflected “the humanity of the man,” Luhrmann said at a packed press conference at the festival. Priscilla posted “Beautifully done,” praising Luhrmann; Austin Butler, who toplines as the King; Tom Hanks as his manager, Col. Tom Parker; and Olivia DeJonge, who stars as Priscilla.
Since the post, the Presley family has come out in full force to support the release of the Warner Bros. film by attending the Cannes screening, turning up at the Graceland premiere, appearing on Good Morning America, and even outside the TCL Chinese Theatre to stamp their handprints in cement. Priscilla, who was married to Elvis Presley from 1967 to 1972, has been joined by their daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, granddaughter Riley Keough, and Lisa Marie’s twins, Harper and Finley.
Actor and now director Riley Keough, who is Lisa Marie Presley’s daughter and Elvis’ granddaughter, offered glowing praise for the film after its premiere. She described the movie as an emotional experience and that she started crying in the first five minutes and could not stop. Butler explained that over two years, he put the rest of his life on hold as he “went down the rabbit hole of obsession,” embarking on the project with the “unrealistic expectations” he could make his face identical to that of Elvis if he worked hard enough, likening this approach to going to a wax museum.
Elvis in real life
Elvis’s career spanned decades, from the 1950s, bringing rock and roll to the masses at the tender age of 21 and scandalizing audiences with his “suggestive” dance moves, serving in the Army, and crossing over effortlessly to star in Hollywood movies, he inspired the kind of wild fan worship we see today with BTS and Harry Styles. Despite issues with drink, drugs, and food addiction that impacted his touring career, Elvis made a successful comeback in the 60s with a TV special and a Las Vegas residency before his untimely death at 42. A marker of his huge success, “Elvis” is still the best-selling solo music artist of all time; he’s a more than worthy recipient of the Lurhmann cinematic gaze.