Elvis (2022)
IMDb meta-data is runtime 2 hours and 39 minutes, rated 7.8 by 20,000 human comedians.
Genre: BioPic.
Verdict: Indigestion.
The spectacles just kept on coming without rhyme or reason until this viewer lost interest, about an hour before it ended. Since no Hollywood movie can be made without Tom Hanks, he is there under a ton of make-up, attenuating everything well beyond the breaking point.
When Elvis sings, that is the best part, but even that wore thin by repetition. While the black roots of his music are emphasised it is external not internal. It goes from the outside in, and does not emerge from the inside out with the gospel songs. There exist live recordings of Elvis singing in black churches before an audience that are spectacular for the energy and emotion that are discharged. There is no need for kaleidoscopic camera spins and other confusions. Despite the no-expense spared staging in this film that electricity fizzles.
These church recordings are, well, unrestrained and exultant quite unlike the studio versions of the same songs. They have an immediacy and intensity that is palpable.
When I visited Graceland, the overwhelming impression I had was the ever presence of music in every room, in every nook and cranny there were record players, instruments, sheet music, 45s, radios set to music stations. The music was oxygen for The King, and he had to have it, had to make it, to live. The house communicates that need far better than does this film.
Moreover, the movie missed the obvious fact that celebrity killed Elvis as he was consumed by his fans. Eaten alive in the constant demand for performances and in turn he became addicted to the audiences. Colonel Tom was a catalyst not a cause.
At times the film seems to use Elvis as a prism to observe US society, and that loses its biographical focus.
Are we there yet? Where are we going? And why? Alain Resnais once said if a story cannot be told in 90 minutes, it is not (yet) a story. Put differently, if you know what you want to communicate it can be done in 90 minutes, if you don’t know then it takes 2 hours and 39 minutes or more.
Those who want something of Elvis the man might try (1) Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) for a cackle and half, or (2) one of Daniel Klein’s krimis in which Elvis investigates, e.g., Blue Suede Clues (2002).