Film Review: Elvis

Before I talk about the film, I want to mention that I spent a lot of time with my grandad growing up. He is now eighty-three and much to my heart-ache did not want to come to the cinema with me to see this biopic with me due to the news that he watches four times a day, terrifying him, about Covid-19 cases, monkey-pox, muggers, murderers and generally saying what a scary place the world is.

Twenty years ago, he would have joined me, paid and picked on anyone who looked at me the wrong way, before his illness, he was a strong, proud and protective man, who played Elvis tapes as loud as he could out of his car stereo.

Now at the age of thirty-one, with my better half, I have watched this film with little to no knowledge of Elvis' personal and professional lifestyle. I know a lot of the songs, year he was born, the year he died and his wife and daughter's name.

The scenes that got to me most were the ones with his parents. Losing his mum, made me wonder if that was where the song 'don't cry daddy' came from, there were a lot of emotions surrounding her death and as usual Tom Hanks, is Tom Hanks, but in a manner that I am not used to seeing him, cold, calculating and a gambling addict, putting his debts before a so-called friend, personally I am used to more friendly characters from Tom, such as Walt Disney and Forrest Gump.

As for his collapse before his night on stage, I found myself muttering under my breath and begging his father to give him the night off and give him the care that he needed, if I had been watching the film alone, I honestly might have cried at the nurse, who said "If he was my boy, I'd put him in the hospital." Plus then watching his father agree to the doctor to give Elvis something to get him on the stage on time, could have easily made someone, who hadn't grown up on his songs and realized the price he paid for his art, join me with angry tears being held back.

Personally, I am not sure how much creative license was used in the film. I did read somewhere that the family did like the film and imagine that they would have had something to say if it misrepresented them, though I don't need a Google search to imagine that Elvis' father is probably no longer with the living.

I was also in awe at the work that had gone into the actor and by the actor, who played Elvis. At times it was hard to tell which was pulled footage and which footage was part of the film. I can imagine that would be difficult to watch for his family due to the amount of time he has no longer been with us, what can I say? I am an empathetic viewer of most films I watch, except horror.

The film was amazing, but I felt they could have used more songs than they did like repeating suspicious minds, that's alright mama and hound dog on a loop was a bit much, as so many others could have been used and even been given new life.

As for the Cornel's claim that his love for his fans killed him, I couldn't disagree more. It wasn't too much love for the people that killed him, it was the lack of love that the people he loved showed him, who should have been more firm about the importance of his health. I imagine it was a deliberate line for fans to consider as more came out about how he ended up in court after Elvis' death. I suppose it was something that they imagined he would have said to hide his guilt over how much he pushed him (into an early grave), but that is just one outlook of the work, it probably has another few different meanings that I could spend hours looking into.

TCB fellow fans!