Elvis arrives in Cannes late, ushered in by screaming hordes. He says: “My daddy is a good man” and “It’s gonna be OK, mama”. He sings Hound Dog on stage and all the girls turn to puddles. The festival initially wanted Baz Luhrmann’s biopic for the opening night, two Tuesdays ago, but the film is a diva and divas make us wait. Have we gobbled down enough movies and drunk too much rosé? Have we achieved a state of perfect peak excess? Only then, finally, does the King deign to show.
Like Elvis, this year’s festival set out full of vigour, with a spring in its step and a wiggle in its hips. Now it’s bloated and sagging, just beginning to rot. All such events, I suppose, have a natural lifespan, an arc. This one’s gone to Graceland, dateline 1977.
