|
ELVIS
REVIEWED BY
CHARITY BISHOP
Our rating: 4 out of 5
Because of: sensuality, language
Rated:
One summer
evening, my dad caught Elvis in concert, not too long before his
unfortunate death. For three hours, through this film, I felt as though
I understood something of the fascination the public held for the tragic
singer who came out of such humble beginnings and achieved national
stardom. Produced several years ago as a miniseries, Elvis has
finally been released on DVD.
Small town
boy Elvis Presley (Jonathan Rhys Myers) has magnificent ambitions. He
wants to sing for a living. Not just in the church where he grew up, or
at social gatherings. He wants to make it big and get picked up by a
singing group. His loving mother Gladys (Camryn Manheim) believes he is
capable of great things, but his father Vernon (Robert Patrick) is much
more skeptical. Still, nothing can stand between Elvis and his dreams
and with the $3.50 he saves, he cuts a local demo of a single song for
his "mama" and gives it to her. The couple who run the demo store are
impressed with his voice as well as his determination and several years
later, call him in for an audition with a local band. But nothing Elvis
sings seems to fit what the studio wants. In order to shake out his
nerves, Elvis sings a little to himself -- and the recorders are
switched on. Before he knows it, "That's All Right, Mama" is a huge hit.
Suddenly,
everyone wants a piece of Elvis and the man most interested in his
potential for success is "Colonel" Tom Parker (Randy Quaid), a high
powered agent who convinces Elvis to pull up his small town roots and
hit the big time. But going on tour makes gradual changes in the young
man's life. Some of them are for the good as he grows confidence, but
most of them are for the bad, since it sends him down a self-destructive
path of drinking, drugs, and womanizing. Girls love him. Their parents
hate him. His records sell like hot cakes but his dance moves are banned
from every self-respecting town in the south.
To be
perfectly honest, the first portion of this film did not have me
convinced that the leading actor could pull it off. Jonathan Rhys Myers
is very talented but he looks and sounds nothing like Elvis. He has a
beautiful voice with remarkable range and the movie is strongest when it
is him singing, rather than lip synching to old Elvis tracks. (Horribly,
sometimes the vocals and lip synching are a fraction of a second off,
making it obvious that he's faking.) I think in that respect the
miniseries would have been stronger if they would have recorded all new
material (although it is the only film authorized to use the original
recordings). That said, after twenty minutes or so of suspended
disbelief, I was able to get into the film and allow it to carry me
along with the events. I know nothing of Elvis' life and so I cannot
comment on the accuracy of the series, but I suspect it is fairly honest
in its depiction of him, as well as the people who surround him.
Because
this was filmed for network television, the content is moderate. There
is quite a bit of mild profanity in the second half, as Elvis' language
gets rougher along with his lifestyle. It shows him not only taking drugs, but encouraging his girlfriend to
take them as well. There is no sexual content, but it's implied that
Elvis has a steady string of girlfriends. Once, he has two towel-wrapped
fan girls in his room. He becomes infatuated with a fourteen year old
girl and engages in some passionate kissing with her, but they never
take it too far because he might "go to jail." One scene opens with him
on top of her, and a great deal of heavy breathing; but they were only
kissing. Eventually, they do move in together and later on are married.
His hands wander a bit with his first girlfriend and she slaps them
away, reminding him not to fondle her.
Elvis goes
through a "religious" period in which he is reading through a great many
books about God, however some of them have a little bit of a new age
slant, and his own view of his insignificance in the grand scheme of
God's plan for mankind is skewered. His agent, not liking this period of
searching, orders all of the books to be destroyed. Elvis is
quite a decent film by most standards. It's not brilliant enough that it
will land in my collection of personal favorites, but for anyone
interested in the morals and beliefs of the time period, or the
sensation he caused through his "indecent" behavior, it's an interesting
and often informative glimpse into the past.
|