The success of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” is peculiar in the sense of being more interesting than the film itself. And not all that interesting anyway, but I’ll try to get full value from it.

But first, I’ll say that I’m not sorry I saw the film. There’s real pleasure there, even for for non-Elvis addicts like me. The pleasure lies – exclusively – in Austin Butler’s performance as Elvis in performance..But not as Elvis living the rest of his life. None of Luhrmann’s flash, rapid cutting, split screening or weird camera angles adds up to anything approaching coherent drama. Butler, and the rest of the skilled actors are fitted out in costumes and hairstyles that tell the whole story anyway. The dialog tells you nothing about anyone’s real emotions, so you might as well just look at the eye candy. It holds up to Luhrman’s proven talents, as he seems to know by now. In direction, the only distinction is that the editing was so disjointed that you almost never saw the actors’ lips move when they spoke.

But the project itself raises some interesting questions. The only story Luhrmann seemed to care about was the relationship between Elvis and Colonel Parker. Coincidentally, he was given freest rein it that because they are both dead, so their own views are unavailable. But the living no doubt posed real problems. Priscilla (since deceased), Lisa Marie and Elvis’ dad, Vernon Presley, are given major roles, in fact more than the usual biopic. Lisa Marie as a toddler posed few problems because she remained an adorable object of affection in all her scenes, in which she barely spoke. But Priscilla and the father are a constant presence, usually to oppose anything Elvis wants to do. Drugs and sex are slickly danced around, but Parker’s hold on Elvis is always front and center. To them, Parker is pure evil. But family, friends and entourage are shown as powerless against Parker, whose grip never weakens. The conflict simply comes down to this: Elvis so loves to perform that he lets Parker abuse him in every way.

 

 

Trouble is, that potentially interesting conflict is hammered home in the most banal and simplistic way that it’s never even believable, much less coherent. Tom Hanks is fitted out to look and glower like Sidney Greenstreet, and adds up to a nearly supernatural being, whose real identity remains a mystery by the film’s end. Luhrmann wants to imply some deeply embedded kinship between them, but then cuts away to Elvis singing to his worshipping fans, and lets it drop. Again and again. In Parker’s presence, Butler is frequently shown hunched over, defeated from the start.

So you are left with Butler impersonating the legend as we remember him, and it is often overpowering. His actual singing is strong, even in the fragmentary way we hear it. This is because the arrangements stress orchestral power that seems to stop -on cue – at Elvis’ absolute command. Then we see what makes the legend, and Butler never holds back. His gyrating acrobatics are awesome, and exhausting just to watch. But we see the energy that Elvis put into every song, every phrase, with the strain and sweat pouring from him, that, in those moments, the film has found its only coherent theme. As Parker tells him, the only thing that matters to Elvis – enough to make everyone else in his life secondary, including his family – is love. Just the love from the screaming adoring mob of his fans, almost all girls in their teens and twenties, that he needs to get from them, up close, while he sings his heart out. At those moments, we can understand why Elvis was dead at the age of 42. It’s a wonder he lasted that long.