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od, Gatsby, Gandhi. There are certain roles that carry with them an almost unbearable weight of ubiquity that threatens to smother the fine work of the actor portraying them.
Elvis Presley might be the worst of the lot. No cultural icon has arguably been more commodified or parodied than the hip-rattling King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Find a white male actor with a decent jawline and quiff their hair – this has always been the approach. But whether you’re Kurt Russell in John Carpenter’s Elvis (1979) or Cork’s Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in the eponymous 2005 miniseries, the look and the loose-lipped purr often push any “serious” biographical depictions towards the arch realms of Elvis Impersonator.
Some go all-out in embracing a bit more of the cartoon of the man (see Val Kilmer, Jack White, or Michael Shannon).
When it was announced that Baz Luhrmann, a fellow king, albeit one of showy, ostentatious storytelling, was set to do for Elvis what he had already done for Gatsby and William Shakespeare, few eyelids were batted.
Presley’s beauty, bombast and slightly kitsch aura are the Australian writer-director’s natural habitat. Tom Hanks as Elvis’s Svengali Colonel Tom Parker would be a good anchor for Luhrmann’s inevitable circus hijinks, you also felt.
More of an unknown quantity was Austin Butler, the twenty-something US actor who had worked with Jim Jarmusch (The Dead Don’t Die) and Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).
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Now charged with filling the rhinestone-studded jumpsuit, Butler would need to give a defining take on an item of 20th century furniture that had been approached from every angle imaginable.
The whole project, filmed in Australia amid the pandemic when cooped-up expectations couldn’t be higher, would stand or fall on Butler.
Hanks (heavily made up) delivers an arch, thickly accented voiceover from the Dutch-born Parker. Luhrmann never dials down the green-screen trickery, the whizzing split screens, or the showbiz kablamo.
It allows Butler to slot in as the third part of a triangle in which the fireworks are taken care of. Butler’s is a more dusky-eyed, unsure King, callow and wholesome until he discovers the world sits precariously in the palm of his hand.
Biopics often flounder by not concentrating on one axial period in their subject’s life. Luhrmann – co-writing with Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce and Jeremy Doner – chronicles the whole lifespan over 160 minutes, and somehow gets away with it.
We see the young Elvis (Chaydon Jay) living in a black ghetto and being exposed to the scandalous heat of jazz music. And there is the night when those hips make their stage debut during a touring support slot and set in train a sexual revolution.
This early scene takes the form of a rapturous orgiac explosion, a seismic pressure valve of animalistic female desire released in the confines of a theatre. It is Luhrmann at his very best.
The worse this goes down with conservative America, the larger the dollar signs in Parker’s eyes. He woos the young heartthrob with twinkle-eyed assurances that success and security for his family are a given.
The ascent is meteoric, the screams deafening. After marrying Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge) and starting a family, there is the move into Hollywood and the decline in his stock value.
Growing increasingly unstable and burning through cash, Elvis struggles until Parker – who we’re never quite sure of – hits on a residency in the Mafia-run Las Vegas of the late 1960s.
Everything is as blingy and lively as you’d expect from Luhrmann. No phase in the King’s life is overstayed, and due attention is given to the changing world, segregation and Presley’s affinity with Black music.
Does it slightly gloss over the bloated cheeseburger years and ignoble death? Perhaps, but the Luhrmann aesthetic was never going to show us the King collapsing off a toilet seat, trousers around ankles.
This is a spectacle, a colourful mural clad in fairy lights for a generation who missed the real thing.
If you’ve never cared for Luhrmann’s style then Elvis is unlikely to change that. But even his harshest critics could not fault Butler, who exudes exactly what is needed for this mythologisation – the mannerisms and sheen than made Elvis otherworldly, and the chinks in the armour that made him like us.
Also showing
Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest
Four stars
In cinemas; Cert 15A
One coin can go a long way. Just ask Kim ‘Cannon Arm’, a mullet-haired Danish lab technician and renowned gamer whose endearing eccentricity and remarkable resolve forms the basis for this delightful documentary.
You don’t need to be an expert in all things Donkey Kong or Space Invaders to get on board with Cannon Arm’s mission: an epic, record-breaking attempt to be the first gamer to spend 100 consecutive hours playing a 1980s shoot ‘em up called ‘Gyruss’.
But really, Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest is more a film about friendship and determination, made by Kim’s friend, an amiable, first-time feature director named Mads Hedegaard.
Kim – father of four, grandfather of one – is no spring chicken. His nearest and dearest – a ragtag crew of supportive misfits – develop a strict training programme. They are bound by their love of games, of a community that welcomed them when nobody else would, that embraced their oddities and made them legends.
Hedegaard garnishes this quirky and surprisingly moving display with plenty of warmth, wit and heart. In a word? Irresistible. Chris Wasser
Rise
Three stars
Disney+; Cert TBC
Has there ever been a more formulaic sports film than director Akin Omotoso’s true-life basketball drama, Rise? Cheesy, inspirational quotes pepper every line of dialogue. When someone gets knocked down, they’re told to get back up again. If a certain Chumbawamba tune had featured, it wouldn’t have surprised me.
And yet, Rise’s central premise – that of Nigerian emigrants struggling to build a better life for their family in Greece – is impossible to turn away from.
Charles (Dayo Okeniyi) and Vera Antetokounmpo (Yetide Badaki) do everything to keep a roof over their sons’ heads. A contradictory system prohibits them from acquiring Greek citizenship, and the family lives under threat of deportation.
When brothers Giannis (Uche Agada) and Thanasis (Ral Agada) discover they’re handy with a basketball, the lads begin to wonder if perhaps their future lies on the court. NBA fans will explain the rest.
A rushed, Disneyfied background of modern basketball’s most charming siblings, Rise’s cosy, cliche-riddled screenplay rarely digs as deep as it should. Still, its intentions are pure, and this capably performed display is never boring. Chris Wasser
The Big Hit
Four stars
Selected cinemas; Cert 15A
Emmanuel Courcol’s winning, charismatic dramedy is as educational as it is entertaining. Case in point: I had no idea that it’s customary for French theatre performers to wish one another ‘merde’ (direct English translation: ‘shit’) before curtain rise. It’s a peculiar one, right?
There is, of course, so much more to The Big Hit (Un Triomphe) than witty lessons in theatre etiquette. Inspired by a bonkers true story, Courcol’s film stars Kad Merad as a disheartened, out-of-work actor named Étienne who, after landing a precarious gig running a prison theatre workshop, discovers a passion for directing.
One thing leads to another and, sensing an opportunity for redemption, our man hatches a plan to stage Waiting for Godot – performed entirely by a cast of loose-cannon convicts – on a real stage, outside the prison walls.
A madcap idea, but not entirely impossible, and Merad is wonderful as a scrambling, middle-aged thespian desperate to make it work. Courcol’s film is perhaps a tad too comfy in its depiction of life behind bars, but this funny, unconventional and thoughtfully crafted prison flick keeps on surprising. Get on it. Chris Wasser
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