Elvis

Elvis (2022) tells Elvis Presley's life, and the choice of who tells it is the whole idea of the film. The narrator is Colonel Tom Parker, his manager. He is in hospital, dying, defending himself. So the film's narrator is unreliable and you watch it knowing that. Parker's real story is too important to leave out. He was Dutch, entered America illegally, and never held valid papers. Because he could not have returned if he left the country, he never took Elvis abroad. The most famous singer in the world barely performed outside America across his entire career because his manager had no documents. Baz Luhrmann shoots in his familiar register: fast cutting, split screen, period music mixed with present day production. Some find that energising and some find it exhausting. Austin Butler sings some of it himself; the early recordings are his voice, the later material is blended with Presley's own. The best section is where the film shows where Elvis got his music: the Black churches and the blues scene in Memphis. Tom Hanks's Parker was heavily criticised on release. It runs 159 minutes. Good for: music biographies, Luhrmann, and period film. Less good for: the cutting is very fast and tiring for some viewers, and it contains drug use and death.