ELVIS (2022)

Elvis is a 2022 biographical drama film directed by Baz Luhrmann and written by Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, and Jeremy Doner. It follows the life of the American rock and roll singer and actor Elvis Presley, told from the perspective of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. It stars Austin Butler as Presley with Tom Hanks as Parker, while Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Luke Bracey co-star.

Elvis premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 25, 2022, and was released in Australia on June 23, 2022, and in the United States on June 24, 2022, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film was a commercial success, grossing $287.3 million worldwide on an $85 million budget, and it is the second-highest-grossing music biopic of all time behind Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and the fourth-highest-grossing Australian-produced film. It received generally positive reviews, with Butler's performance garnering widespread acclaim. Luhrmann's direction, the cinematography, editing, sound design, costume design, production design, and musical sequences also received praise, though the script, Hanks' performance, and the runtime drew polarized responses.

The American Film Institute named Elvis one of the ten best films of 2022. At the 95th Academy Awards, it received eight nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Butler. The film thus becomes the second-most nominated music biopic in the history of the Academy Awards, a distinction shared with the 1942 Michael Curtiz directed Yankee Doodle Dandy, both of which fall only behind Miloš Forman's Amadeus which garnered 11. It also received three nominations at the 80th Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, and received seven nominations at the 28th Critics' Choice Awards, including Best Picture, and winning the Best Makeup Award. It was nominated amongst the five best edited feature films (Drama, Theatrical) by the Eddie Awards, as well as in nine categories by the British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film, Leading Actor and Cinematography, and nominated for the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures by the Producers Guild of America Awards. Butler received numerous accolades, including nominations for Best Actor from the London and US/Canada Critics' Choice Awards, as well as winning the Golden Globe Award.

Plot

On January 20, 1997, Elvis Presley's former manager, Colonel Tom Parker, is on his deathbed, having suffered a stroke. Nursing a gambling addiction that has left him destitute, he recounts how he first met Presley.

Raised mostly by his doting mother Gladys, Presley spends his childhood in the poorest parts of Mississippi, finding an escape in the comic book adventures of Captain Marvel Jr. and especially in song. However, upon moving with his parents to Memphis, he is ridiculed by his peers due to his fascination with the African-American music of Memphis's Beale Street. At this time, Parker is a carnival "huckster" who fancies himself a modern-day P. T. Barnum. Although partnered with country singer Hank Snow, Parker realizes Presley's crossover potential when he hears him "sounding black" on "That's All Right." That night, he sees Presley at a "Louisiana Hayride" performance, discovering a talented musician with intense sex appeal.

Parker meets with Presley at the carnival and persuades him to let him take control of his career, beginning a meteoric ascent that sees the Presley family lifted out of poverty. The regional public is divided in their view of the singer. Feeling that Presley's music will corrupt white children and stoke racial hostility, the segregationist Southern Democrat Mississippi Senator James Eastland calls Parker to an informal hearing, during which he questions Parker about his mysterious past.

After Presley's charged dance moves at a concert, he faces legal trouble. Parker persuades the government to draft Presley into the US Army instead. During his military service in West Germany, Presley is devastated by his mother's alcoholism-induced death. He finds solace when he meets Priscilla Beaulieu, the teenage daughter of a United States Air Force pilot. After his discharge, he resumes his film career and marries Priscilla years later.

As the popular culture of the 1960s passes Presley by, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy devastate him. Although he wants to become more politically outspoken in his music, Parker only allows him to release frivolous feel-good songs for a Christmas special television. However, this does not dissuade him. His performance choices in the special, including the closing number, "If I Can Dream," are presented and perceived as acts of not only his past songs but also political commentary. Infuriated corporate sponsors threaten litigation, while a disgusted Parker believes Presley has been "brainwashed by hippies." Nevertheless, the show is highly successful.

After the special, Presley headlines at the largest showroom in Las Vegas, the International Hotel, and resumes concert tours. Parker's control of Presley's life tightens up as he refuses Presley's request for a world tour despite initially promising him and manipulates him into signing a contract for a five-year Las Vegas casino residency. Presley's problematic behavior and prescription drug addiction overtake him, and a despondent Priscilla divorces him on his 38th birthday, taking their daughter Lisa Marie with her. Presley discovers the truth that Parker cannot leave the country because he is a stateless illegal immigrant named Andreas (Dries) van Kuijk, and fires him on September 3, 1973. Parker and Presley argue over the latter's $8 million debt to the former accumulated over the years. Parker convinces Presley of their symbiotic relationship, and while they rarely see each other afterward, Parker continues as his manager.

Presley continues a rigorous schedule of shows that leaves him increasingly exhausted. In 1974, Presley expresses his greatest fear to Priscilla of being forgotten after he dies as he believes he hasn't achieved anything worthwhile. At one of his final shows on June 21, 1977, in Rapid City, South Dakota,^[7] Presley, now obese and pale, sings "Unchained Melody" and ends the performance to thunderous applause. As he finishes his recollection, Parker dies in 1997, impoverished and alone, while Presley, who died on August 16, 1977, is beloved worldwide and is the best-selling solo artist in history, with his influence and legacy on music continuing to the present day.

Cast

• Austin Butler as Elvis Presley
• Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker
• Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla Presley
• Helen Thomson as Gladys Presley
• Richard Roxburgh as Vernon Presley
• Kelvin Harrison Jr. as B.B. King
• David Wenham as Hank Snow
• Kodi Smit-McPhee as Jimmie Rodgers Snow
• Luke Bracey as Jerry Schilling
• Dacre Montgomery as Steve Binder
• Leon Ford as Tom Diskin
• Gary Clark Jr. as Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup
• Yola as Sister Rosetta Tharpe
• Natasha Bassett as Dixie Locke
• Xavier Samuel as Scotty Moore
• Natalie Bassingthwaighte as Dee Stanley
• Adam Dunn as Bill Black
• Alton Mason as Little Richard
• Shonka Dukureh as Big Mama Thornton / Pentecostal singer
• Sharon Brooks as Sylvia Shemwell of the Sweet Inspirations
• Princess Mariama Andrews as Cissy Houston of the Sweet Inspirations
• Nicholas Bell as James Eastland
• Liz Blackett as Grandma Dodger

In addition, Chaydon Jay portrays the young Elvis Presley, Josh McConville and Kate Mulvany portray Sun Records' Sam Phillips and Marion Keisker, respectively, while Cle Morgan appears as Mahalia Jackson.