Forty years after the death of Elvis Presley, a musical road trip across America in his 1963 Rolls Royce explores how a country boy lost his authenticity and became a king while his country lost her democracy and became an empire.
Elvis is clearly used as a metaphor by Jarecki. Undeniably progressive in his approach and his politics, the filmmaker still crafts a compelling portrait that reaches beyond simply ideology.
...the movie does so in painfully simplistic terms, with encyclopedia-style snippets of history, authentically pained but insubstantial musings on "how we got here," and an odd reliance on the comments of celebrities who lack any Presley connection...
Elvis Presley's 1963 Rolls-Royce serves as a metaphor for what 's wrong with this country in two-time Sundance Grand Jury winner Eugene Jarecki's new documentary.
At its best, "The King" is a fever dream of American glory and American weirdness - between which there can be an even thinner line than the one separating love from hate.
With an insistence that borders almost comically on obsession, [director Eugene Jarecki] forces the singer's life into a larger theory of national decline-the American dream is dead, and Elvis is the emblem of its passing.
The insistence may inspire a furrowed brow here, a rolled eye there, and a shaken fist or knowing nod over yonder, but there's enough earnest comment and good music to make the effort worth seeing and chewing over.
