Elvis

 

Elvis

This movie is unique not only for the electric performance of Austin Butler and manipulative Col. Tom Parker played by Tom Hanks but for the entire production. The film is not in chronical order, it jumps around depicting Presly’s milestones. Scenes of his impoverished childhood are brief but important showing the influence of gospel music and the frenetic gyrations of parishioners becoming a hallmark of his “wiggling”. Elvis is a bridge between gospel/ R&B and rock and roll. The film has a litany of black musicians  including BB King, Little Richard, Fats Domino and Sister Rosetta Tharpe who influenced Elvis. When a reporter called Elvis the King of Rock and Roll, he replied no Fats Domino is the King.

Austin Butler gives a dramatic and  brilliant physical performance. His Elvis is fragile and insecure. He was a mama’s boy and needed reassurance. But Butler gives a mean rendition of Elvis’s classic songs. He sings some of the early songs but later songs use Elvis’s voice. His dancing is kinetic and mimics the original. Elvis was known for his wicked hips which Butler performs superbly (when Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show he was filmed from the waist up). Butler said the secret to the dancing is not so much the hips but the ankles. The movie covers the arch of Elvis’s life. The scenes of his demise are brief but powerful. Butler gives a masterful  performance of all his life’s chapters.

Tom Hanks plays Colonel Tom Parker as a cartoonish Svengali. In a fat suit with a floppy jowl, Hanks is in a constant state sweat affecting a nondescript European accent (the real Parker was Dutch). Elvis and Parker had a toxic symbiotic relationship. A critic said showing Mr. Rogers as a scoundrel would detract from the film. On the contrary, Hanks disdainful swindling portrayal defines their complicated relationship. Elvis needed someone, good or bad.

 Besides his mother the other important woman in his life was Pricilla Presley played by Olivia DeJong. She has good chemistry with Butler and depicts the downward spiral of their relationship. Even after their divorce they still loved each other.

Waring to senior citizens, the is a two bathroom movie with a run time of about two and a half hours.