2022 must-watch film is ‘Elvis’, I promise!

Austin Butler gives it his all in acting this god-level legend in front of our eyes, making us cannot but scream and cry. He is superb in terms of acting performance both in singing and dancing when he is imitating a legend who has been dominating the music culture with influences for over sixty years with his unique singing and dancing coming out appealing, boisterous, crazy, sexy, and sensual despite controversial attracting criticisms and bans then.

The movie is a biopic depicting Elvis’s musical life path starting from his youth to the end of his life. Elvis fervently loves music, Black, in particular, every time he sings, he sings with dance showcasing magic power; he loves people, both black and white; he dares to dream, he has made a painstaking effort to make his dream come true; he is uncompromising and a bit rebellious, he has fought against racists with a showcase of ‘Trouble’ gaining himself conscience and integrity when he exhibits his unswerving position telling the world all races are born equal. That is Elvis’s life, it is already not ordinary; however, times have helped further such, not ordinary into extraordinary when then was time to be a hero, and he was opportunely in it.

Elvis is passionate about Black music and he has devoted his life to singing them to his utmost on stage with dazzling costumes and magical appealing dances to entertain and enthrall his fans. In the movie, it doesn’t lack a bit of the crazy scenes of women screaming with clutches and the daring showing of their sexual desire of possessing him, making every show of him in the movie cannot but make us rapturous.

Elvis arises to stardom swiftly winning tons of fans’ love and admiration, he marries a woman whom he loves, and very quickly they have had a baby daughter. Elvis looks like the luckiest and happiest man in the world having both a career and a family; however, he is unhappy, he feels lonesome and dismayed when he is not on stage rendering him unable to control the state of his emotion, and eventually, he paves himself an unreturnable road of abusing drugs. His mother drowns her sorrow when she exceedingly worries about him, and finally, she dies rendering him gut-wrenching. His wife, taking away with her their three years old daughter, heartlessly leaves him. All these have made Elvis immensely hurt leading to great pain. These life trajectories of Elvis do tell us legend is human, they are the same as us, having flesh and blood no different from us. Only, they can have a lot more burdens, worries, distress, and some kinds of ineffable difficulties than us that we may never imagine. What’s worse, they have to face and experience the vicissitudes of life a lot more than we do.

The thing is when a legend is no different than us, should he have tons of love from people? Can he be big enough to acquire so much love being happy? The answer is ‘no’. The culprit for paving Elvis an early death road is not his heart disease nor is it his abuse of the drug or his crooked manager (acted by Tom Hanks) who relentlessly and shamelessly exploits him but ‘love’ – the tons of love his fans exceptionally and excessively give him. Yeah, a normal person cannot take in such a huge amount of love because he or she can never be that big enough to take it.

Elvis is a good, true, and kind person, excessive love has made him have misgivings. He feels uneasy taking so much love from his fans because he realizes that he will disappoint them one day. He is just a normal person, not the god that all his fans think he is so. When it is very hard for him to express himself to his fans about it, such misgivings will become torment making him gradually develop a syndrome of ill-at-ease like depression.

Making good use of women’s innate outspoken expressions, Elvis dances crazy sexually on stage to intentionally attract them has triggered not a few harsh criticisms. Fearing he will corrupt women’s chasteness, the state has once or twice ordered him not to wiggle in his shows despite him being rebellious enough to refuse it. He knows he cannot stand the test of time due to him being so controversial. Moreover, he knows men will grow old having a physical decline, this brutal truth has also made him exceptionally worried about the longevity of his musical career rendering him consternated.

To human nature, it is rather embarrassing and unbearable when today many people know you and love you, and tomorrow you are forgotten or even detested. As fans, we have to behave ourselves by loving our idols with restraint or they would suffer from the pang of our arbitrariness when we don’t grab a proper way to truly love them with sincerity. Love our idols’ talent, effort, and personality rather than their dolled-up appearance or sexual appeal so that the relationship in-between can reach sustainability; making them know they are the same as us sharing the right of having weaknesses and defects so that they can live their lives as we do. Never revere them as gods or their lives will be doomed.

In the movie, it comes as a great surprise to us in the last scene playing a documentary film of ‘1977 unchained melody’ performed by Elvis with the piano. More than sad and moving, when then no one knew he would leave us less than sixty days after the show. I cried when I saw how much effort he had made in the performance, he melted my heart as well as broke it.