Who’ll Get Elvis Most Wrong — Filmmakers or Critics? Crowning the King on a Throne of Lies (Variety)

Problem with this column is it's only one page. There's lots more wrong in the movie and reviews.

https://variety.com/2022/music/opinion/elvis-film-reviews-inaccuracies-1235280146/

Since the movie appears to have followed the popular mythology of Presley’s longtime manager, Col. Tom Parker as half gargoyle, half Rasputin, all evil, it’s little surprise that the critical community feels sanctioned to dismiss Parker as “a self-serving con man who monopolized the star’s artistic and personal freedom,” as one top critic summarized.

No less an expert than acclaimed Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick applies nuance missing from most reviews:

“Presley’s ‘totemic belief in the Colonel’ was cemented while he was in the Army, when his greatest fear was that time and distance would crash his career and destroy his popularity. Parker, the canny manager-merchandiser, promised that wouldn’t happen and his tireless efforts to keep Presley’s name before the American public as both a box-office star and recording artist convinced the singer that they were an unbeatable team.”

Another critic exalts “Elvis” for its depiction of Elvis as Victim, “a portrait of a serious man trapped in an unserious life.”

Maybe.

Lost in the critical rush to crush the Colonel is something Waylon Jennings, in his autobiography “Waylon,” wrote about the Elvis he knew. As in actually knew.

“He had not progressed very much from when he was 18; he was still like a little boy, in so many ways. All he did was play, like a kid, and sing… A lot of people like to say he was secretly sad, but I don’t believe that. If anything, I don’t believe that he was deep enough inside. He was having fun until the last minute. He loved being Elvis, the mystique of bodyguards, and girls screaming, and being adored.”