Elvis

 

Aussie director extraordinaire Baz Luhrmann anchors his dazzling Elvis in the terrific dynamic between Austin Butler's uncannily accurate / swivel-hipped performance as the King of Rock 'n' Roll and Tom Hanks' more nuanced but riveting portrayal of the gambling-addict Svengali who took the handsome, honey-voiced son of Tupelo and turned him into the "most famous person in the world" -- the enigmatic Col. Tom Parker, narrator of the story.

Were the film just about the rise and fall of an American musical legend -- all exploits and exploitation -- that would likely be plenty for most of those drawn into the theater by the film's title. But, to this viewer, the picture contains grander notions, namely, how popular cultural phenomena reflect and foment social change.

Elvis's fairly brief but jam-packed 20-year career ran parallel to seismic changes in American history -- the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam war, youth rebellion against establishment values, the outsized power of television -- and Luhrmann folds into the story how these events were refracted through the eyes of Elvis, who was struggling with trying to be true to himself while pleasing those around him.

Luhrmann proffers that rather than being an appropriator of Black culture, Elvis was never more honest to himself than when he was singing the music he heard as a child -- gut-bucket blues and Negro spirituals. Scenes of an ecstatic young Elvis moving in the spirit in a Black country church and his taking in Beale Street acts with his friend B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) appear to be intended to challenge claims that Elvis was a poser who made millions through cultural theft.

The picture is robust and visually breathtaking, just as one would expect from the director of Moulin Rouge. Butler's turn as Elvis is the showier performance but Hanks' as the jowly, curiously accented Parker is the stronger, to me, because so much of the movie's vitality is invested in the oily machiavellian, who even when threatened with termination or explusion manages to survive to play another hand.