“This ain’t no nostalgia show…we’re going to try something different”

When it comes to music biographies, we seem to have run the gamut – we’ve had traditional recountings of the lives of famous artists, and more subversive attempts to portray the rise and fall of some of our greatest musicians. It seemed almost inevitable that we’d eventually receive one that told the story of Elvis Presley, since it was only a matter of time until someone took the leap and made the definitive version of his life’s story, looking at it in vivid detail and exploring the various facets the contributed to his status as a folkloric figure of 20th-century culture. There have been a couple of projects that look at his life, but few received the cinematic treatment – until recently, when Baz Luhrmann took the leap and stepped behind the camera for the first time in nearly a decade to tell the story of arguably the greatest entertainer in the history of American culture. Undeniably, Luhrmann is not the first name that springs to mind when we think about someone who would helm a biographical retelling of Elvis’ life, but the further we allow the idea to settle in, the more it makes total sense. He is a born entertainer that has chosen to use his talents behind the scenes, crafting excessive and bombastic productions that are about as far from subtle as any film can get – but yet, they’re truly entertaining, functioning as manic, rapid-fire combinations of lights, sounds and colours that he and his coterie of creative collaborators manage to fashion into a true spectacle, in every sense of the word. Elvis is truly a sight to behold – a lavish account of the life of one of history’s greatest icons, made by a director who demonstrates a deep appreciation for the subject matter, and one of the most extraordinary musical biopics in recent memory, contributing to a steadily growing canon of films that look at different sides of some massively important cultural figures with a blend of compassion and curiosity.

Luhrmann will be the first to admit that his style often lends itself to excess – after all, he has gone on record multiple times, saying that his main influence has always been grand opera. We can see this reflected in the majority of his films, and Elvis is not an exception. As much as we can criticize the director for his lack of subtlety, we have to appreciate the fact that he has consistently maintained his vision, and despite working in a slightly more controlled genre, he does not allow conventions to dictate how he tells this story. The film is fashioned as a biographical film made by someone who isn’t interested in the details so much as he is compelled to explore something deeper, focusing on the qualities that fascinate him, as both a devotee of the artist himself and as someone with a very peculiar set of curiosities, which leads him to make his version of Elvis’ story. The result is an over-the-top, sprawling epic that could have fallen apart at the seams, but is kept afloat by the pure dedication the director brings to the process of telling the story. Like the words at the start of this review say (which come from a pivotal moment in the film), Luhrmann was not interested in inciting those familiar feelings of nostalgia, nor was he aiming to play the same taut notes that have defined this genre for decades. Instead, he’s setting his heights on something much more ambitious, even if it meant taking several risks, which has become as much a trademark of the director as his visual panache – and like all of his films, Elvis is willing to take the risk, since the reward is likely going to be far more worthwhile than had he stuck to conventions and made a more traditional version of this story.

One of the elements of Elvis that stands out is how it is almost evenly divided between both sides of the titular subject’s life, looking at his rise to fame, and the subsequent decline that ultimately led to his untimely demise. The film is an intricately-constructed account of his life, from his early days of obscurity, to his ascent to arguably the most iconic musician of his generation, a face that is indelibly branded onto the worldwide culture. This film doesn’t ever need to convince us that Elvis was an icon – it states that explicitly and without any hesitation. Instead, what it is doing is exploring the extent of his fame, and both how he handled it, as well as those that surrounded him – this referred to the people in his life, such as his family that kept him grounded, or his manager who exploited him, viewing his talent as a commodity that should be harnessed and manipulated for the sole purpose of financial gain, or the generations of audiences that encountered his music. His rise to fame is shown in vivid, spectacular detail (and knowing Luhrmann, he certainly did relish in making sure that every frame was as vibrant and spectacular as possible), while his downfall is framed with compassion, which is just as important as anything else in the film. Considering how many films about tragic figures tend to exploit the more downbeat sides of their lives, Elvis is admirable in how it never aims for the low-hanging fruit, showing that he was committed to being an entertainer even when he was struggling with personal problems such as marital strife, addiction or the fact that he was pushed into a position of being a massively beloved public figure who was adored by the global community, but who lacked the autonomy over his own life. One of the most haunting parts of Elvis is how we see how much of his life was forcibly guided by Parker, whose manipulation and refusal to allow Elvis any freedom played a major part in his demise, and it presents a very different side of fame than many similar films tend to convey, which immediately makes it a much more resonant biographical work.

While he has often brought out the best in his actors in all of his films (some of whom have delivered career-best work while under his direction), we have to acknowledge how a great deal of what makes his work so effective is Luhrmann’s penchant for finding the right actor for the roles. Tom Hanks is the main attraction in theory – hidden under layers of grotesque prosthetic makeup, and armed with a bizarre accent and moustache-twirling villainy, he takes on the part of Colonel Tom Parker, the narrator of the film who openly expresses that he played a major part in Elvis’ decline – and while it is always wonderful to see an established actor like Hanks take on a role that is far more against-type than what we usually plays, he’s not particularly strong, at least not in terms of the real star of the film. Austin Butler has been around for a while, but has not been taken seriously as an actor until recently, where he suddenly seemed to be almost rediscovered, making his way into a few auteur-driven films that show that he is on the precipice of becoming a major star – and Luhrmann may have just tipped him over the edge by giving him this role. Elvis features Butler giving a tour-de-force performance, the likes of which any young actor would be envious to give – and while a lot of the time these kinds of roles are based on the ability to effectively mimic a famous figure, Butler goes several steps further and embodies Elvis with startling accuracy – from the cadence in his voice (which is a lot more difficult to replicate than most would expect), to the incredible physicality, he is turning in a spellbinding performance that is beyond transformative. It seems inappropriate to refer to this as a star-making performance, since he is far from a newcomer, but it feels as if Butler is entering into a new stage of his career, one in which he has finally proven that he has the talents to be a big star, and it would be truly surprising if he didn’t manage to garner countless equally strong opportunities as a result. It’s not an easy feat to overshadow an actor as formidable as Hanks, but in every scene, Butler commands the screen and demands our attention, which only further emphasizes how exceptional his performance is, and how the entire film benefits from his willingness to inhabit every aspect of a character that would be intimidating for even the greatest actors.

When we really look behind the excessive veneer, we find that Elvis is a film that is not solely invested in exploring Elvis’ life, or deconstructing his legacy. Elvis Presley is used solely as a figurehead for a more deep and disquieting examination of fame as a whole, which is an approach that was not pioneered by this film, but quite possibly perfected, at least in terms of true stories of famous individuals. Fame is as much a blessing as it is a curse, and a story about Elvis was going to have to tackle this subject at some point – so it only seems logical that Luhrmann’s version of the story would use him as the anchor to explore something much deeper than just his personal struggles. Being in the public eye is not particularly easy, and the film is ultimately as much about Elvis as it is his legacy, which we can see through the decision to filter much of the story through the perspective of Elvis’ manager. In most instances, he would just be a supporting character, but here he bookends the film, which can both be seen as an attempt to enrich the method of telling the story, but also showing that it is not always the artist themselves who are responsible for their downfall. Elvis can almost be viewed as a Christ-like parable, the story of someone who emerges from obscurity and finds himself earning myriads of disciples, only to fall victim to greed and corruption that leads to scorn and disdain from the very people who celebrated him. In most instances, such a comparison would be tenuous and ridiculous, but as we’ve seen in his previous work, Luhrmann is certainly not someone who would be against such comparisons. The film certainly plays like a biblical epic, having the length and scope that defined these movies and made them so endearing, as well as the deep sense of moral complexity that distances it from the plethora of films that believe that simply structuring their story around a relatively objective and factual retelling of someone’s life, boosted with some emotional complexity, is sufficient in entertaining audiences. This is true to an extent, but certainly not enough to justify this film, which aims to be much more complex.

Elvis is a film that could have so easily have spiralled out of control – at nearly three hours in length, and filled to the brim with a dizzying array of images and sounds that can disorient even the most seasoned of viewers, this was a film that was flirting dangerously close with failure. Yet, as we have come to learn, Luhrmann is not someone who we should ever underestimate. He may have only made a small handful of films, but each one simmers with the intensity of a true artist, and it is heartening to see that even when tasked with telling a relatively conventional story, he asserts his own vision above those of anyone else, which allows for this film to be a remarkably well-crafted and brilliantly subversive riff on a genre that has become almost stale in how formulaic it tends to be. It’s difficult to find fault in this film, even when it is at its most bombastic – Luhrmann has mastered the art of finding the balance between excess and intimacy, and while it is unlikely that it will overtake Moulin Rouge or Romeo + Juliet as the director’s most cherished work, Elvis feels like his most complete film, the perfect collision of his over-the-top visual prowess and deeply complex approach to storytelling. Not since Powell and Pressburger were at their peak have we found an English-language filmmaker as committed to the pursuit of both style and substance as Luhrmann, and his work here is incredible. Challenging but not in a way that feels unearned, and filled to the brim with rivetting imagery and a masterful artistic perspective, Elvis is an astonishing, polished work that is as respectful to its subject as it is committed to giving the audience a fully-realized spectacle of a film, which it achieves from almost the very first moment, where we are enraptured in this world, and taken on a journey into the life and times of one of history’s most iconic individual, who is finally given the chance to have his story told in a way that feels faithful to him, both as someone who existed perpetually in the public eye, and as someone fighting a series of invisible battles that made him both a celebrated artist, and a truly tragic figure, both of which exist in tandem in this stunningly haunting account of the man that inspired generations of artists, and who embodied the very idea of radical fame, for better or worse.