Once a generation or so, a cerebral force of nature comes along to push the threshold of exhilarating grotesquery, to force crucial and agonizing questions about what it really means to be human. Blake. Nietzsche. Bataille. De Sade. Genet. Luhrmann.

Baz Luhrmann is an Australian film director known for his self-indulgent, hyperactive, and nauseating treatments of fiction and history. His 1996 riff on Romeo + Juliet is… fun, actually. I have the play memorized thanks to my theater-kid brother, and the movie managed to showcase Luhrmann’s rococo aesthetic sensibility without violating my fondness for the source material. I watched Moulin Rouge! in a laundromat and emerged feeling as if I’d consumed a dozen Costco birthday cakes while riding the teacups at Disneyland for two densely packed hours. After that, I avoided Luhrmann’s work until I read a few reviews of Elvis. They were the sorts of bad reviews that made me absolutely determined to see the movie, and, friend, it does not disappoint.

Much like insufflating PCP, watching Elvis can be a lot of things, but it’s not boring. It’s so much more than the sum of its hundreds of aggressively bad decisions. It’s loosely about the relationship within the mix of sexual menace and bumpkin naivete that made Elvis Presley an American icon, more about how the exploitative schemes of Colonel Tom Parker wrecked Elvis’s artistry, and mostly about how Baz Lurhmann wants to ruin your life by salami-slicing your eyeballs. When you beg him to please turn it down, Baz says, “fuck you,” and turns it up.

The character development is lacking. That’s no fault of Austin Butler, a recovering child star who lends some depth and pathos to a central figure defined by his juvenile relationship with shame and disgust, nonetheless adored by everyone who knows him, and constantly shit on by assholes like Parker. Much has been written about the awfulness of Tom Hanks’s fat-suited, mysteriously accented Colonel, and it’s all well deserved. Hanks appears to be detoxing from adrenochrome, and nothing of value comes from the gimmick of viewing Elvis’s life through the lens of a zero-dimensional piece-of-shit scam artist. Kelvin Harrison Jr. makes the most of Elvis’s friendship with B.B. King, although the film’s treatment of race makes one long for the subtlety of Ralph Bakski. And Olivia DeJonge is fine as Priscilla, who is portrayed as the king’s rock (never mind that she hooked up with Elvis when she was 14 – I guess pedophilia isn’t a big deal when you fuck zebras like Baz Luhrmann presumably does) in a movie that treats femininity with all the complexity of bimbofication porn.

There’s not much of a story, either. An unimaginative heckler immediately transforms Elvis from a stammering weirdo into a gyrating sex symbol. A tour mate offers him a pill that will, “put the pep back in your step.” When he changes his style somewhat, his fans protest with picket signs. He’s deeply moved by the pivotal political events of the ‘60s and makes continuous, elaborate attempts to stay relevant as Parker’s fumbling machinations consign him to overwork, addiction, and a debtor’s prison disguised as a Vegas residency. Because none of that is sufficiently heavy-handed, we also get a Greek chorus of casino marquees.

The film dwells at length on sexy Memphis Elvis, frustrated ‘68 Comeback Elvis, and bloated Vegas Elvis while mostly ignoring Hollywood Elvis, which is, for my money, the most interesting Elvis. I live in Los Angeles because it’s the best city in the world and the place where our most embarrassing dreams can come true in the most life-ruining ways. Presley was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood history for a hot minute, and his scrappy cinematic oeuvre would have been fascinating fodder for Luhrmann. It’s one of many paths not taken. 

Elvis was a worker. Elvis was a lost soul. Elvis is everywhere. Baz doesn’t give a shit. Baz is all about Baz.

That leaves us with two hours and thirty-nine exhausting minutes to luxuriate in the director’s hyperventilating visual style. Parker may believe that “show business requires sacrifice,” but this film demands to have anything and everything. Everything about it is baffling, amazing, and brutally overstimulating. Watching it was a draining experience. By the ending credits, I felt as if I’d woken up on a strange and horrible new continent. 

As a well-credentialed mentally ill person with a constant loop of M.O.P.’s “Ante Up” playing in my head, I can relate to this energy. Plus, I believe that criticizing Elvis is tantamount to kink-shaming.

My own perversions aren’t exactly a state secret. (If you haven’t figured it out yet, I can explain it to you if you ask very, very nicely.) So it’s no small thing for me to say that Baz Luhrmann is a sadist. And he’s not a delicate one. I don’t know anything about his personal life, which I imagine can only be adequately described with Kool Keith lyrics. But the experience of watching Elvis feels like paying someone money to beat the shit out of you. It’s not my thing. But it’s okay! I have to respect it.

In fact, the only thing wrong with this movie is that it’s too high-energy, too ridiculously impressionistic, too much, and too powerful for our weak and confused times. If you don’t like Elvis, it’s because you’re a loser. Before you badmouth Elvis, you should stop being a loser. It’s embarrassing for me to be around you and I’m tired of breathing second-hand loser fumes.

Look, I’m sorry. I was brutally attacked by this movie and I’m still processing the trauma of that experience. I don’t always know how I’m acting, and I certainly mean no disrespect to you, a person who has never shown me anything but the deepest kindness and sympathy. As a token of my gratitude, I give you this warning. If you must go see Elvis, know what you’re getting into, and know that you may not be the same after its nearly three merciless hours. God hates us all.

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