Movie Review: A Complete Unknown

Dir. James Mangold, screenplay by James Mangold and Jay Cocks. Starring Timothee Chalomet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro

There's been some comment about inaccuracies and blurry time lines in James Mangold's’s new film about Bob Dylan, A Complete Unknown, based on Elijah Wald's ‘s book Dylan Goes Electric! I wasn't bothered by word on the street that it didn't follow all the facts, chapter and verse. It's a movie, after all, takes poetic license, and whatever A Complete Unknown lacks in historical accuracy, the screenplay and performances more than make up for in emotional intensity.

 I tend to seek out biopics about artists, writers, actors, dancers, designers and musicians largely because I'm interested in what makes creatives tick, how they overcome challenges (if they’re able to) and perhaps partly because I want to understand more about the artistic impulse in myself. Of course such films often contain deeply intimate details about the person behind the work–good, bad and ugly–such as disastrous love affairs, jealousies & obsessions, addictions, weaknesses and destructive tendencies, that watching them can sometimes feel like voyeuristic key-hole peeping, with the perception that makers of docu-dramas–unlike biographers or documentarians abiding by some academic or journalistic standards– will take off the archivist gloves and get their hands dirty. This film has that behind-the-scenes/ “behind the music” feel, but without any tabloidish edges, due in large part to the transcendent performance by Timothee Chalomet as Bob Dylan.

It's about Dylan's transformation from itinerant troubadour into international rock star, thwarting Pete Seeger's (Edward Norton) dream of Dylan becoming the pied piper of the folk movement, only instead of leading new fans off a cliff like the sinister flautist of Hamelin, Seeger's vision has the immensely talented Dylan leading them to the mountain top, bringing folk music and its message off the street corners and out of the smoky confines of urban coffee shops and bars to the masses. Dylan's dream for his future doesn't mesh with Seeger's, however, and the final outcome of this push-pull in Dylan's early career is the stuff of legend.

 A Complete Unknown captures the zeitgeist of the early 1960’s while illuminating aspects about our own times, with phantoms of war, nuclear and conventional, assassinations, the threat of political violence, and end-of-era uncertainty lurking in the background. In the film, Bobby Dylan (formerly Bob Zimmerman of Hibbing, MN), newly arrived in New York City, pays his respects to the king of folk, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), with a visit to Guthrie’s hospital room. Guthrie is Bob’s damaged mentor, a sage robbed of the power of speech. Even in his debilitated state, both he and Pete Seeger, who's often at Guthrie’s bedside, see Bob as a new messenger.

The best Guthrie can ultimately do is to wish Bob well on his journey with the gift of a beloved harmonica, but Pete takes a very active role in promoting Bob, giving him a place to stay, finding him gigs, and introducing him to Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), the reigning folk princess with whom Bob forms a relationship both romantic and professional. Concerning Bob’s relationship with Sylvie (Elle Fanning), a committed young activist (whose real-life counterpart is a woman real-life Bob still cares for, the reason he didn't want her real name used in the film), Joan is a frustrating threat, a looming presence whose musical ambition rivals Bob’s, and who inhabits a place in Bob’s life that Sylvie can never share. In a heartbreaking scene, she stands offstage watching Joan and Bob share a mic at the Newport Folk Festival, helplessly observing their knowing looks that reveal a deep connection between them. Sylvie and Joan are well aware of each other and their respective places in Bob’s life, and Joan’s sweeping glance at Sylvie prior to joining Bob onstage is devastating, leaving Sylvie to wonder how she could ever compete with the angelic-voiced, barefooted star, and finally deciding once and for all–she can't.

Bob’s connection to Joan would be daunting for any other woman in his life, but even ambitious Joan can't compete with Bob’s total commitment to his art. The main conflict is between Bob’s vision for himself and the one others have for him, seeking to mold his mercurial talent to their own ends. Like other mid-century artistic rebels who changed the cultural landscape in their creative areas, such as Jack Kerouac, Jackson Pollock and Charlie Parker, Dylan's early relationship with fame is tentative and trepidatious, but he learns to navigate it without falling into addiction or isolation. The sunglasses he wears through much of the second half of the film become his armor, hiding a soulful gaze that hints at vulnerability but mostly reveals a steely, unswerving resolve to be his own man in a world that offers easy avenues for selling out or giving in, conforming to the desires and expectations of others. The simmering tension surrounding Bob’s fate and his courage to fulfill the destiny he imagines for himself finally explodes in a climactic scene amid crying, confusion, gnashing of teeth and cries of “Judas!” As Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) puts it, Bob decides to “track mud on somebody's carpet,” and in so doing, cements his place in America’s musical canon..

I shared one song from the film, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” , with my literature class just before the holiday break, a song that inspired Joyce Carol Oates to dedicate one of her most famous short stories, “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” to Bob Dylan. Past and present, it's clear that Bob’s music and influence still spans generations, with fans from Gen Z  to the Boomers. While Bobby stood on the shoulders of Woody Guthrie & other dreamers, truth tellers & street musicians that dared swim against the current, cut against the grain, and speak truth to power, he blazed his own trail as well. The arbiters of folk music yell for the guys on the sound board to stop the show during Bob’s first fateful electric performance, but they can’t; the force that’s been unleashed onstage is unstoppable,

 I went to see this film not knowing if I'd like it or not, but hoping I'd find something in it that would inspire me, which is another reason I must admit I like to watch biopics about creative folk. I thoroughly enjoyed A Complete Unknown not only because of the stellar performances and standout script, but because I did leave inspired. It helps to be reminded that when one feels pulled in multiple directions, pressured to conform to other's desires or fit into a box someone else built, the best thing one can do is plug in and break free.

Five Reasons to see the Flannery O'Connor film Wildcat

Directed by Ethan Hawke, Written by Ethan Hawke and Shelby Gaines.

1.       If you don’t know anything about Flannery O’Connor and her stories, this film serves as an excellent introduction.

If you’re new to the work of Flannery O’Connor, Wildcat will orient you to the salient features of much of her Southern gothic literary oeuvre, including her use of rural Georgia as setting, and the characters who inhabit the postwar rural south, ranging from prideful landed gentry to “poor white trash,” from crooked bible salesmen to maniacal would-be preachers. O’Connor claimed that while the south purports to be “Christ-centered,” it’s really “Christ- haunted,” and her stories are populated with characters engaged in a spiritual struggle, whether they realize it or not.  Her protagonists are forced to deal with a pivotal moment of grace, and what it means for their lives. In O’Connor’s fictional universe, deeply rooted in her devout Catholicism, God often acts through an unlikely agent of grace on characters that many readers may find less than deserving, but that’s the nature of grace: God’s underserved mercy. Wildcat illuminates this concept through explorations of key moments in O’Connor’s fiction. These moments are often fraught, anxious or frightening, but always transformative. Concerned as she was for the souls of those in an increasingly secular world, violence is O’Connor’s way of getting the reader’s undivided attention, the kick in the head she believed most readers require to make them see the need for God in their lives. In Wildcat, O’Connor herself (Maya Hawke) seems startled by her own visions of sudden violence, recognizing it as the vehicle she would use to drive home her message to jaded modern audiences in need of saving.

2.       If you already know a lot about Flannery O’Connor and her work, this film will give you new insights into both.

Many O’Connor fans are likely familiar with details of the author’s biography, such as her childhood in Savannah, move to Milledgeville as a teen, education at Georgia College and Iowa Writers Workshop, and the subsequent struggle with lupus that necessitated her return to Milledgeville. In photos of O’Connor, she appears as a studious young woman: intense, somewhat remote. Even in photos of her smiling, it’s hard to get much of a sense of this personality whose wry sense of humor and fearlessness imbue all her stories. With Wildcat, we gain a clearer perspective of Flannery O’Connor the writer, who must champion her own work with a ferocity unfamiliar to writers of more conventional fiction of that time, and the loneliness she feels among her peers who rush to correct the political incorrectness of characters who aren’t right, but are nonetheless real. We also get a more complete picture of her desire for love and understanding. In the film, O’Connor harbors an unrequited yet seemingly mutual affection for Robert “Cal” Lowell (Philip Ettinger). I don’t know how much of this is historically/ biographically accurate, but true or not, Lowell’s character in the film could serve as a composite of several thwarted relationships O’Connor had with men. It seems that she finally came to terms with the frustrations and hurt through absolute commitment to her art, especially in the wake of her lupus diagnosis and the knowledge that she was destined to die young. In fact, that’s another aspect of O’Connor’s life brought into sharp focus in Wildcat: anxiety about impending death.

3.       This film goes beyond the label of “biopic” in its treatment of the subject and her work.

While the cinematic narrative addresses the biographical, it immediately delves directly into the art itself, with Maya Hawke and Laura Linney playing the author and her mother in addition to other characters from O’Connor’s stories. O’Connor herself says in the film, “I only feel like myself when I’m writing,” and Hawke’s performance of O’Connor as well as the fictional characters (not all of them female) is diamond-sharp and spot-on. O’Connor’s imagination is in overdrive as she wanders through a New York house party, seeing stills of the vivid activity flowing around her, as if witnessing moments in time bursting with the potential of being transformed into literature. With the long train ride from the cosmopolitan New York literary scene to the more provincial environs of central Georgia, during which signs of her lupus manifests, O’Connor shortly discovers that the opportunities she feared missing by having to stay home on the farm have in fact traveled south with her. Inspiration is all around, so she adheres to a strict schedule, rearranges her room to minimize distractions and sets to creating some of the most memorable fiction of the twentieth century, timeless and universal, out of things happening in her own backyard. In Wildcat, life and art blend seamlessly into a complex series of juxtapositions and reflections, separate vignettes skillfully woven together into one compelling narrative about the author’s spiritual and creative evolution.

4.       Maya Hawkes performance is amazing.

Hawkes’ portrayal of Flannery O’Connor is a portrait in toughness and tenderness, from facing down a reluctant publisher who suggests she go with a more conventional narrative in her novel, Wise Blood, to her deep affection for Lowell. The scenes where she and Lowell banter about matters both literary and personal are some of the few instances where her vulnerability is on full display. Another key instance of this is O’Connor’s emotional conversation with her priest (Liam Neeson), about her feelings and fears concerning the looming prospect of death. Eventually, her acceptance of Lowell’s impending marriage to a lovely New York blonde, and of her own mortality, free her to fully inhabit the world of her uncompromising fiction. Maya Hawkes embodies Flannery O’Connor the writer, the woman, and the daughter of another strong-willed woman: Regina Cline O’Connor (Laura Linney). Shades of their complicated, occasionally prickly relationship are revealed in the biographical parts of the film, while hidden aspects possibly surface in the fiction (especially in “Good Country People”). O’Connor turned a jaundiced eye toward a certain type of women a bit too sure of their place in the world, as well sheltered youth fresh from the halls of traditional academe. None are spared pain, doubt nor confusion (though in the case of Manley Pointer in “Good Country People,” that’s debatable). In a scene from “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” the liberal-leaning son of a middle-aged woman is alternately amused and horrified at his mother’s embarrassment and paternalistic racism on a city bus ride and the subsequent encounter with a black woman and her young son. Julian’s reaction ranges from schadenfreude to pity at the outcome. Things are rarely cut and dried in Flannery O’Connor’s fictional universe, and Maya Hawkes “gets” both O’Connor’s complexity and multi-faceted interpretation of events surrounding her in her time.

5.       Laura Linney’s performance is amazing.

Like Maya Hawke, Laura Linney portrays multiple characters in addition to that of Regina, including Mrs. Hopewell from “Good Country People,” and Mrs. Turpin from “Revelation.” As Regina O’Connor, Linney embodies the southern woman of that era for whom a priority is keeping up appearances, which extends even to her daughter when Regina keeps the doctor’s diagnosis from Flannery herself, for fear of making things worse. Flannery resist Regina’s admonishments to rest rather than wear herself out writing, but even in Flannery’s resistance is evidence that she also recognizes her mother’s concern. Her acceptance of Regina’s love for her, even as she pushes back against it, is familiar to mothers and daughters everywhere. The “Jesus scene” within the exploration of “Revelation,” a short story about a woman who sees herself as a very good person, near the top of the social hierarchy, is visually stunning, over the top, and exemplifies much of the controversy surrounding O’Connor’s work. It’s also why she is often seen as a “problematic author,” even with a long list of literary accolades to her name. The choice Jesus presents to Mrs. Turpin, use of the “n-word,” and Mrs. Turpin’s anxious response, is a reflection of O’Connor’s time and place. To pretend that such debates, internal and external, didn’t or don’t occur, is a denial of history and reality, and O’Connor did not shy away from unpleasant truths that, even as her publisher claims early on, make things uncomfortable for her readers. Offering comfort, cover, and escape from reality was of no interest for O’Connor, and not the purpose nor aim of her fiction.  If, as Shakespeare is quoted as saying, the purpose of art is to hold the mirror up to life, Flannery O’Connor does it with a steely, gaze. What we see looking back forces us to assess our relationship with society, ourselves, and most importantly, with God.

It's not easy to hear nor see much of what happens in the fiction of Flannery O’Connor, but it isn’t supposed to be. O’Connor had her own tough reality to face, but she did it with dignity and courage. Like Flannery O’Connor, we can’t know what we’re made of until we’re tested. That’s the only way to find out how any of us would fare staring down the barrel of the Misfit’s gun—or whether we’d be the ones holding it.

Here’s a link to the official trailer for Wildcat.

For an excellent documentary about Flannery O’Connor, watch Uncommon Grace, a film by Bridgit Kurt, filled with fascinating facts, and commentary by O’Connor scholars and experts. Here’s a link to the web site.

You can read my interview with Bridget following her first festival win for Best Documentary here at Deep South Magazine.

If you’re interested in more about Flannery O’Connor, click here read to read my short piece in Deep South about the “Flannery and Fashion” exhibit at Andalusia Farm, and my interview with Elizabeth Wylie, former executive director of Andalusia Farm here.

Movie review: Barbie

Directed by Greta Gerwig, written by Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach. Production Companies: Mattel, Heyday Films, Lucky Chap.

I went to see Barbie on opening night, having just realized that my mother had only days to live.  I can hear a chorus of the Barbies saying, That's good you came to the movie, Nevada. You needed something to relieve your sadness. A distraction, a mild narcotic.  

And what better to take my mind off my real-life troubles than a candy-colored, toy-inspired movie of the moment? Except that the theme of the new Barbie movie is death. 

From an anarchic opening scene wherein Barbie (Margot Robbie) is first encountered by little girls whose experience with dolls has heretofore only been those shaped like babies, to Barbie's life-altering choice, offered by Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), in the form of a glittering high-heeled pink pump (living a fantasy) or a Birkenstock (living for real), Barbie is a rapturous celebration of femininity, a journey to a world of female empowerment, where joy and optimism reign supreme and the gritty and chaotic "real world" never intrudes. Powerful and accomplished women rule Barbie Land, and no one ever questions whether there "should" or "could" be a female president. It's a given that women can do absolutely any and everything. 

But even Stereotypical Barbie gets the blues as it turns out, when Barbie's perfect world is marred by the encroachment of a real woman's blues, those of Gloria (America Ferrera), who works for Mattel, and whose recent sketches portray a Barbie that, though beautiful, has the melancholy expression of many women in the real world, facing its impossible contradictions and demands every day. This heartfelt,  specifically female affliction, and the urgings of Weird Barbie (the embodiment of all Barbies upon whom modern little girls now turn their anarchic actions, using ink pen, scissors or lighters to modify her looks, and pose her doing perpetual splits) are what pull Stereotypical Barbie out of her dream house that has somehow suddenly become uncomfortable. 

If Stereotypical Barbie wants to retain her perfection, she must find the girl whose blues are potent enough to poke a hole through the fabric separating Real World from Barbie Land. What Barbie doesn’t anticipate is besotted Ken (Ryan Gosling) hitching a ride in the back of her pink convertible. While Barbie won't be distracted from her mission to find the sad girl who's tearing the fabric of her rose-tinted not-quite reality,  Stereotypical Ken discovers the testosterone fueled magic of toxic masculinity, and brings it back to Barbie Land where it's greeted by the other Kens like the bringing of fire. 

Meanwhile, when Mattel execs (headed by Will Ferrell) get word that Barbie is out of the box and running amok, an all-out chase ensues. Mattel is portrayed in the film as pure Corporation, whose sole goal is to make a profit. An out-of-the-box Barbie running free in the Real World makes for a volatile situation, and as many executives believe, volatility in business is usually a result of bad management. Once again, the "problematic female" must be contained.

Barbie's ultimate goal of maintaining her own perfect world shifts when she meets her creator: not a male chauvinist with a burning desire to impose impossible standards of physical perfection on all womanhood, but kindly Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman), who created Barbie in honor of her daughter, Barbara. During her time with Ruth,  Barbie gets to see a side of the real world that, unlike the nasty, brutish, greedy side she's seen so far, is kind and caring. 

Margot Robbie is superb as Barbie, whose glamor is softened by her vulnerability. When Barbie, dressed in a hot pink cowgirl outfit, confidently approaches a table full of jaded tween girls at lunch, she proudly announces herself, and, expecting excitement and adoration, instead gets cut down to size by their feminist diatribe. She flees in tears, not yet realizing the connection between one of the girls in that hostile group and her own goal. 

Ken sees Barbie as an obscure object of desire, not necessarily a sexual object but something/ someone he must pursue. Ken exists only in relation to Barbie, created to be Barbie's boyfriend, 'friend' being the operative word, so while Barbie is consumed by existential angst, Ken wrestles with his own. When a Barbie Land battle of the sexes turns into a war between the Kens, Ken also finds his purpose. In a mind-blowing (for me!) dance number, Ken's journey culminates in a breakthrough that's palpable, a vibrant moment of epiphany. 

There's a lot of talk about Barbie as marketing extravaganza, that it's mostly a sales vehicle for–of course--the toys themselves, and everything else onscreen. But isn't just about every superhero/ big-budget/ gadget-driven juggernaut a marketing machine, from t-shirts & tin whistles to shoes, posters, toys, and fast-food confections? Barbie has more heart & soul in its little plastic finger than the biggest CGI/SFX extravaganza has in its–whatever. Did Barbie make me consider buying a pair of pink Birkenstocks? Maybe. Might I buy a fuzzy pastel hoodie that says "I'm K-enough" for my husband, if I happen to run across one? I might. But then, I've been toying with buying a new pair of Birkenstocks for some time now, and my husband, at nearly age 70, is secure enough in his non-toxic masculinity to wear pink. 

As I was walking into the theatre, I saw a small group of women taking selfies in front of the Barbie movie poster out front. I asked if they'd seen it, and they said yes. Did they like it, I asked. They said they did, one of them adding: "It was actually quite poignant." 

I agree. There's one scene near the end that especially touched me, given the situation with my mother. In a film full of eye-candy colors and set-design, it's lovely in its simplicity, and stark in its meaning: the crux of Barbie's existential struggle. You'll know it when you see it. Referring back to the theme I mentioned earlier; it's not just death, but how its inevitability is what gives us our humanity. 

For all the controversy surrounding Barbie dolls themselves, and now the film, its easy to forget but well worth remembering that Barbie isn't just an anti-feminist, facist tool of the male patriarchy, nor is she a seductive emissary of a 'woke' agenda that would destroy all that is good and holy in America and indeed the world. 

Barbie began as one woman's tribute to a daughter she loved. Countless little girls have spent countless hours playing Barbie dolls, and so did their mothers. The references to that generation at the end, show what really gives Barbie the humanity she craved. It was there all along, in the impulse that created her,

She only had to take it by the hand.

Movie Review: Babylon

Babylon, the new film about old Hollywood and the transition from silents to sound, is a visual and narrative feast with some scenes so over the top they’re hard to believe. My first impression was that it was really good, and I was glad I saw it, but in the days afterward I found parts of it still detonating in my brain. Babylon is full of revelations about the nature of technology and its human impact, and the power of innovation, as well as ambition and dashed expectations.

Written and directed by Damien Chazelle, the film mainly follows the trajectory of Emanuel “Manny” Torres (Diego Calva), a young man who finds himself finally in the right place at the right time to carve out a niche for himself in the burgeoning moving picture business as assistant to star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) and then as a motion picture executive at Kinograph Pictures. Manny’s rise parallels that of Nellie LeRoy (Margot Robbie), an unknown yet self-proclaimed “star,” whose confidence and panache carry her from the gritty stages of low-budget one-reelers to film stardom in a dizzyingly short time.

As Manny’s and Nellie’s fortunes increase, Jack’s are on the wane. His success as a silent film star does not translate to sound. Far from being stuck in the past, Jack is keen to see where advances such as talking pictures will take the new industry that up until now has been most kind to him. At a time when movies were seen by some East Coast intellectuals as bastard children of the theatre, he argues passionately and eloquently with his wife--another soon-to-be-ex and recent New York thespian--for film as the true art of the masses, a magical force in the lives of everyday hard-working Americans.

The hot lights of Hollywood shimmer brightly for some but burn others in the rarified circle of individuals making a name for themselves in the new center of the universe rising from dusty orange groves. Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), a black jazz musician and soon-to-be movie star, finds the price of success too high when he realizes the compromises he’ll have to make to remain in his palatial mansion. Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), is magnetic as a stylish chanteuse and fearless woman whose (lesbian) relationship with Nellie has to end if they’re both to continue their careers in this world where anything goes behind the scenes, but where exposure in the press spells doom in a country still entangled in the Puritanical values of the past and the opening shots of culture wars that continue to this day.

While connections to the biblical Babylon are apt, so are connections to Kenneth Anger’s cult book Hollywood Babylon, a collection of black and white photographs and texts chronicling the decadent lifestyles and dramatic deaths of cinematic luminaries from the silent age to more modern times. The panic, passions and addictions chronicled in that famous tome parallel the ups and downs of the personae portrayed in Babylon.

Beautifully shot, well-cast and well-acted, this film has a frenetic pace that reflects the seat-of-your-pants race to get to set after a hard night of partying, get the replacement camera at all costs, get the shot, get the money, get the drugs, to get everything you can while in the spotlight, because fame is fickle, funds get depleted and while stars remain in the pavement outside Mann’s Chinese Theatre, they often burn out in real life. The best one can hope for is to be a part of something bigger than oneself, and realizing that in Hollywood is the beginning of a kind of cold, hard wisdom, as explained to Jack by gossip columnist Elinor St. John (Jean Smart).

            Granted, this film won’t be suited to all tastes, and is unsparing in its depiction of all-out early Hollywood wildness (the good, the bad, and the weird) but if you’re interested in the pioneer days of film, the silent era and early talkies (as am I), you will likely find much to enjoy in this spectacular epic. It takes the viewer to some dark places, but in the dark is where the magic of movies resides.

            See it on the big screen while you can. There’s a special magic in that as well.

Movie review: Elvis

When I first heard there was a new Elvis movie arriving this summer, I thought, “Yeah, I’ll have to see that sometime,” but when I heard that Baz Luhrmann directed it, I thought, “Oh, hell, yes; I must see that, and on the big screen!” I’m a longtime fan of Elvis, grew up listening to his music, and saw the man himself in concert when I was around 9 years old. I went with my mother, grandmother, great aunt, and cousin, and I saw the line of people, women, mostly, bringing those giant stuffed animals up to the stage in tribute, witnessed Elvis wiping the sweat from his brow, with a new handkerchief, or scarf, of a different color each time, and tossing each one off the stage to some lucky member of the clamoring crowd who no doubt treated it as an heirloom, if not a relic to be passed down to the next generation with the reverence accorded such a persona, such a presence, such a star, as Elvis was and still is.

If referring to a concert souvenir as a relic seems a bit over-the-top, imbuing Elvis with a certain religiosity not normally appropriate for an entertainer, even the caliber of Elvis, consider the argument that sociologist and editor of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Charles Regan Wilson posits in his book Judgement and Grace in Dixie, that there are three pillars of civil religion in the south: entities not religious in and of themselves, but treated with a reverence usually associated with religion, and those are (1.) beauty pageants, not necessarily of the glitzy, Miss Universe-Trumpian variety, but of wholesome young Southern womanhood, and all the attributes, real or mythologized, that go along with that, (2.) Alabama football coach Bear Bryant (and by extension college football itself, especially that of the SEC variety), and (3.) Elvis Aaron Presley. Do you have to be from the south to hold these things in high regard, or at least to understand why this part of the country does? No, but it helps. Elvis, however, has long transcended his Southern origins and, like Coca-Cola, that other ubiquitous block-buster export invented in the lower right-hand corner of the United States, gone on to conquer the world.

Australian director Baz Luhrmann burst onto the cinematic scene with Strictly Ballroom in 1992 and has since become known for such kaleidoscopic eye candy as Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby, among others. The moods and visuals of his films produce the sensation of a roller coaster ride, with the camera’s dips, swings, close-ups, panoramic spectacle, and fancy-footwork editing, operatic in emotional intensity yet street-level intimate at the same time: a melding of cinematic art and pop culture in a way that has become Luhrmann’s signature style. In Elvis, he captures the familiar and the iconic as well as the small, backstage moments that we never actually saw but knew were there, from classic Elvis (played by Austin Butler) shaking it in a pink suit, to Army Elvis getting to know Priscilla (Olivia deJonge), to lonely Elvis, lamenting his age and the thought that he might not be remembered for anything important.

Looming above all this is the formidable, mercurial persona of Colonel Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks in a rare, somewhat villainous role. I say “somewhat,” because as the Colonel (he isn’t really a colonel, nor an American), Hanks as Parker projects a grandfatherly malevolence, which sounds like an oxymoron, and yet he does it. He has the vision of what Elvis can become, but undercuts his protegee at crucial moments, lighting the rocket that will skyrocket E. to fame but dousing the spark when his own self-interests get in the way. When Elvis has the opportunity revitalize his flailing career by going worldwide with his act and newfound sense of purpose and identity, Parker goes behind his back and gets him shackled to a contract with the International Hotel, for an interminable Las Vegas residency that thwarts Elvis’s ambitions and erases Parker’s considerable gambling debts at the same time. In his bid for self-preservation, Parker destroys Elvis’s trust in him, their long-time relationship and Elvis’s independence in one fell swoop. The frame for the entire film is Parker’s telling of the story from his point-of-view, in a voice that sounds like grandpa telling the kids gathered ‘round a tale of joy and woe, of a great “snowman” melted by the incandescent glow of his own greed.

According to the film, Elvis went into this relationship with his eyes wide open, aware of Parker’s ability to snow others, but also aware that he needed (or thought he needed) a vision like Parker’s to break out of the carnival and rinky-dink nightclub circuit to become an international star. Parker was already a manager for country acts like Hank Snow (David Wenham), who rapidly sinks to the bottom of the bill once Elvis joins the act. Snow voices the sentiments of religious conservatives when after one particularly raucous concert where Elvis shakes the crowd into a frenzy and a pair of women’s undies fly onto the stage, he informs Parker that he’ll spend the rest of the evening in prayer, to which Parker, already looking far ahead to the next real big thing, responds “Yeah, you do that, Hank.”

One person who is suspicious of Parker from the get-go is Elvis’s mother, Gladys, beautifully played by Helen Thompson. Her love for her son is palpable, soulful eyes welling with tears when Elvis leaves and goes off to meet his destiny alongside this man who even with his gift of sincere-sounding gab, seems to her something of a pretender. Yes, she’s grateful for Elvis’s subsequent early success and like everyone in E.’s circle, enjoys the trappings of it that include Graceland. This is not the late, sainted Gladys of lore, but a woman who worries, drinks, frets, criticizes and most of all, adores her son to the ends of the earth. Her death is a turning point for Elvis and, left with only his weak-willed father Vernon (Richard Roxburgh) to look out for him, he feels her loss profoundly for the rest of his life.

While I enjoyed this movie tremendously, the deep-dive into Elvis-inspired euphoria experienced at the beginning was, like any great high, hard to sustain for long, and the second half feels more conventionally biopic than Elvis-fever-dream. That said, the necessary biopic elements are handled well, and the Parker-centric narration serves as a compelling connecting thread throughout. I’ve noticed some comment that childhood Elvis’s visit to a black church tent revival and a black nightclub happened too close together in the film, and that such events likely never took place at all in real life. These comments weren’t disputing the influence of religion, black culture, and rhythm & blues music on the boy who would be Elvis (boyhood Elvis played by Chaydon Jay), just that it probably didn’t happen quite like it’s depicted in the film, some say. Whether it did or didn’t, this film is certainly no documentary, and the visual representation of those events and influences work very well in establishing the cultural, racial and musical milieu that made Elvis the artist and performer that he was. It’s easy to see why Elvis flees to Beale Street’s Club Handy when the stress at Graceland gets too hard to handle. The performers at Club Handy inspire him and the music is salve for his soul. When Elvis expresses concern about the direction Col. Parker wants his burgeoning career to take, it’s here that his friend B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) makes an observation that echoes throughout the rest of the film, that Parker must have some other reason than Elvis suspects, some reason all Parker’s own. Indeed.

While Austin Butler does an excellent job in this film, when the real Elvis shows up in footage near the end of the picture, we’re reminded of his greatness as a performer. Even in his final years, when weight gain, drugs, and all his other problems were the stuff of legend and tabloid fodder, the light comes through in his eyes, his smile, his voice, and it’s easy to see why he’s remembered, and why he is the one and only Elvis. Much of this story has been told before, but Baz Luhrmann succeeds in bringing the story of one of the 20th century’s greatest musical artists and cultural icons to a brand-new generation, while giving longtime Elvis fans exactly what they want to see. As the real-life subject for a Luhrmann film, Elvis is the perfect choice.