ASMR Reiki Movie Reviews: Elvis And Removing Ego
Elvis is a LOT when it comes to cinema. It is a pure, sensory bombardment that feels so gorgeously big you oddly grow accustomed to it. From its very beginning, it is so loud and colorful you feel taken aback by your immersion into a view of life rarely taken in cinema. If anything, movies love a good, grim gray with speckles of light. Yet, if you are going to cover the life of the King of Rock N´Roll, could you truly go small? Still, I did not expect Elvis, as a person, to feel so small.
Austin Butler is magnetic in this film, and gives a stirring performance, in part, because he feels like the most grounded aspect of this spectacle. Despite all the slow-motion gyrations and close-up shots of Elvis´ signature lip tremble, there is a really sweet, quietness to him and a sincere, internal battle with feeling like he is a ¨walking less.¨ I guess I never thought he was so insecure and strangely fragile. The Elvis we see is a god; the human embodiment of a powerhouse. He is so supernaturally talented that to see him overeager for validation from his parents, friends, and sleaze-ball manager, Colonel Tom Parkers (Tom Hanks). Yet, that happens with childhood trauma, you can live your whole life attracting the vicious people who see and use you for how badly you want their approval.
From its beginning, director Baz Luhrmann, make it clear that Elvis was very poor and the equivalent to an abandoned child. His mother was an addict that grieved the child she lost at birth over, actually, enjoying the child she had. She was so stricken by one’s death she used alcohol to quell her fear of losing him, and Elvis´s dad was a fraud that was gone most of his childhood and useless for most his adulthood, as well. When you have two parents that are so misguided, it is easy to feel aimless and obsessed with surrounding yourself with enablers and false guides.
For being the loneliest guy in the universe, Elvis was never alone. While there is a cast of characters, and Olivia DeJonge is solid as Priscilla Presley, the film is really battle between good (Elvis) and evil (his manager). Watching Elvis sink into misery, self-sabotage, and complete unawareness of the sharks around him reminded me that, sometimes, immaturity is not about being petty or angry, as It is, often, associated. Sometimes, is it is about being needy and veiling ignorance as bliss. Elvis really wanted a parent and turned a circus act man, like Tom, into the makeshift guardian he wanted, but, in truth, was his death.
Part of ASMR Reiki Movie Reviews, is about reviewing a film for how it could enlighten you about yourself, and Elvis is a dazzling look into self-loathings´ ability to to keep you unhappy and unwilling to see your brighter side. Yes, Elvis lost his childhood, but he has a real chance a family with Priscilla and could have made his adulthood its redemption song. While he gave the world such powerful music and performances, ultimately, he could not feel his own power beyond instance of vast applause. Thus, if he was not on stage, he could not really say he was in his life. Elvis is out in theater now.
