This summer I watched the “Elvis” movie not once but twice. 

When my sister was in middle school, she went through a really hard core Elvis phase. I got really familiar with the life of Elvis and later in life, I learned about his death along with his music fraud, so I was confident that I knew what I was walking into at the movie theater. 

Overall I really enjoyed the movie. I thought the financial angle the movie took with Elvis’s manager, along with the portrayal of his declining mental health was done really well. The acting was good and sincere and the movie took me through a journey of emotions. At times I felt like a teenage girl watching Elvis for the first time, I felt at the top of the world when Elvis was singing with BB King and anger towards the characters that leeched off of Elvis’s fame. 

I would say that beyond the random rap song that played in the middle of the movie, I would say that some points of Elvis’s life were definitely glamorized.

As many are aware, Elvis started the relationship with his ex-wife Priscilla when she was fourteen years old and dated her until they married in 1967. The movie did not note that Elvis had pursued Priscilla at a very young age, which is something, especially in modern day, that should be discussed.  

Another part of Elvis’s career that was gleaned over in the movie was the fact that oftentimes Elvis would sing songs written by black artists without paying them royalties or giving them any credit. It is important to note that if Elvis had endorsed black artists’ work the music industry could have been desegregated much sooner and those artists would have risen to the fame that they deserved. 

Overall I really liked this movie but I feel like they were trying to make Elvis look better than he was.