Personally,I yearn to see him tackle an updated version ofThe Music Man,starring his old pal Hugh Jackman and rescored by Kanye West – but until that day dawns,we can make do withElvis.
Shot on the Gold Coast and reportedly budgeted at a relatively modest $US85 million ($122 million),this zany biopic has its longueurs and is no more historically reliable than you’d expect. Still,as an antipodean fever dream it’s significantly more compelling than previous Luhrmann follies likeThe Great Gatsby orAustralia.
Re-mythologising Elvis (played by Austin Butler),the most mythic figure in rock ’n’ roll history,is what you might call Bazness as usual. The surprise is that Luhrmann’s take on the legend may well be his nearest approach to a heartfelt love story,with apologies toRomeo + Juliet stans.
To be clear,we’re not talking about Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge),who gets one lively scene and then is mostly shown gazing at her man with silent adoration,until it’s time for her to storm out of Graceland in high ’80s telemovie style (she doesn’t say “You’ve changed,Elvis,” but she might as well have).
No,the thesis of the film is that the central,defining relationship in the King’s life was his co-dependent bond with his manager Colonel Tom Parker,played by a latex-encased Tom Hanks as a waddling old sinner with a comedy Dutch accent and an eye for the main chance:Elvis’ benefactor,enabler and jailer,the beast to his beauty,Santa Claus and Svengali in one.
Typically for latter-day Luhrmann,Elvis is less a cohesive narrative than a collection of shards glued together by music and voice-over,with the Colonel in this case serving as narrator – a transparently unreliable one,which supplies a handy get-out clause as far as accuracy is concerned.