Generous director in his disproportionate productions, the Australian Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet) offers himself a piece of choice by realizing Elvispresented out of competition. It chronicles the rise and fall of Elvis Presley through the eyes of his controversial manager, Colonel Parker. An original angle as the King devoted a love-hate to his impresario, alternately angel and demon, who propelled him to the top of the bill, then cut off his wings.
On the threshold of the 1950s, the young Elvis Presley recorded his first success in which he mixed country music and rhythm and blues, white music and black music: the first scandal. At the top of the charts, he fell under the thumb of a crafty impresario nicknamed Colonel Parker.
The King is born: on stage, the swaying of the rising star provokes the enthusiasm of the spectators and the hatred of the leagues of virtue. To calm things down, Elvis is sent to Germany for two years to do his military service. On his return, Parker exerts an increasingly strong hold on the rocker by granting himself half of his earnings and especially by preventing him from doing a world tour.
The Elvis Presley subject is godsend for Baz Luhrmann. The two artists find themselves in the same excess, the first in that of the character and the extravagance of his panoply, the second in spectacular and baroque stagings, where music is central. The director perhaps signs his best film at the same time.
The first steps of Elvis are treated at a frantic pace with a hair-raising montage, customary for the filmmaker. The succession of heterogeneous and fleeting images evokes the composition of a scrapbook, where iconic images of America in the 1950s scroll by. Then the story becomes more fluid, deeper. A real dramaturgy sets in and with it the drama into which the King will sink. The idea of telling the story of Elvis in the story of Colonel Parker provokes adhesion. The interpretation of Tom Hanks in this negative role is breathtaking, just like that of Austin Butler who plays Elvis, very physical and sensitive.
Like his flamboyant and pathetic hero, Baz Luhrmann constructs a staging that reflects the dimensions of the emblematic character of an uninhibited America. It does not tell the story of Elvis but that of a manipulated man, prevented from living his music as he intended, because of a greedy exploiter of money. The King does not lose any of its superb.
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Gender : biopic
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Actors: Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Luke Bracey
Country : UNITED STATES
Duration : 2h39
Exit : June 22, 2022
Distributer : Warner Bros. France
Summary: Lhe life and musical work of Elvis Presley through the prism of his complex relationship with his mysterious manager, Colonel Tom Parker. The film explores their relationship over two decades, from the singer’s rise to unparalleled stardom, against a backdrop of cultural upheaval and America’s discovery of the end of innocence.