Icon-in-his-own-right Harry Styles auditioned for the lead role in Baz Luhrmann’s sly, libidinous and ultimately wrenching Elvis biopic. Luhrmann, though, plumped for the obscure Austin Butler, and now we know why. Especially in the second half, the 30 year-old actor displays the kind of crazed zeal that Renée Zellweger brought to Judy (it’s a long way off to the 2023 Oscars, but all being well, Butler is guaranteed a nomination). Unlike Elvis, Butler can act. Like Elvis, he can move, and for most of the movie, it’s him singing the songs. Damn, I wish I could tell you more about his voice.
The script’s bleak thesis is that Elvis never left the building. He wasn’t allowed to - the building in question being the International Hotel in Las Vegas, which becomes the singer’s glitzy cage in the late 60s and early 70s, thanks to a deal struck by his Dutch manager, Colonel Tom Parker, here played by an on-form Tom Hanks as a huckster with hamster cheeks and a serpent’s smile.
