#MovieReview: Lush but long, Elvis falls short of biopic brilliance

Sweaty, loud and bloated, but with an undeniable magic, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis delivers a solid impression of its subject matter.

Luhrmann has never been one to mine the subtleties of cinema, choosing to throw everything at the audience in genre- and timeline-bending films such as Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby.

Elvis is no different, offering an unfocused but occasionally dazzling childhood-to-death biopic that charts the rise and fall of one of history’s most magnetic and enigmatic entertainment figures.

Unfortunately, the plot points of Presley’s life that link these scenes are lacking in clarity, often leaving a messy, rose-coloured-glasses view of history.

Despite a breakneck pace, the 160 minutes runtime occasionally feels like double that as one waits for the next performance to arrive.

Mild spoilers to follow

Elvis opens on a young Presley, growing up in the poorest parts of Mississippi where he is exposed to the African-American musical experience.

The youngster is rapt with excitement when he hears local singers and church choirs who deliver energetic performances unlike anything he had previously heard or seen.

He is spurred on to entertain in the same way, later packaging “black music for white folks” with the help of lifelong manager, the shady Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks).

This creates an on-stage persona with electricity and sex-appeal in spades, instantly catapulting Presley to fame with the support of women across America.

Naturally, this later brings the heavily publicised difficulties that followed fame in his life and the personal and career problems that they created.

Although Butler imbues his version of Presley with a boiling undercurrent of tension and many idiosyncrasies, the film never confronts his darker side.

His relationship with 14-year-old future wife Priscilla and milquetoast support of the civil rights movement, are instead blamed on the evilly-portrayed Parker.

Luhrmann clearly loves Presley, which comes through in his depiction of the star, but it also somewhat blunts his ability to deal with the grey areas.

But that love also prompts some incredibly shot performance scenes where Presley is seen as almost godlike in the way he enthralls a crowd.

Whether those scenes on stage will be worth the price of admission are down to the viewer’s affection for The King. Non-fans will probably have diminishing returns.

Rated 16 for Language, Violence and scenes of Drug Abuse.
3/5.

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