Tom Hanks' Weird Elvis Performance Is Actually Perfect (Despite Haters)

There’s been a lot of talk about Tom Hanks’ strange performance in the new Elvis biopic, mostly critical, but his weird turn as Colonel Tom Parker is actually perfect for what the movie is doing. In Baz Luhrmann’s latest musical extravaganza, the life of Elvis Presley (Austin Butler) is explored through the perspective of his long-time manager Colonel Tom Parker, played by Hanks. The pair’s tempestuous and warped relationship is explored thoroughly throughout the film, highlighting how Parker tricks and uses his so-called “boy” to feed his own gambling addiction and ensure he can stay in the country.

The character of Colonel Parker is certainly a strange one, and not much is known about the man’s past, other than his work in the circus. Much has been made of the accent that Tom Hanks uses in Elvis. Even the Colonel’s real-life biographer has said how inaccurate Hanks' Colonel Parker accent is in Elvis, likening his real accent instead to a more Southern dialect approached by a Dutch native. The combination of whatever Hanks is doing with his voice, plus the fat suit and the cheap-looking prosthetics, has led to some confusion among moviegoers as to what the beloved actor is trying to do in the movie.

Related: Why Tom Hanks' Colonel Tom Parker Called Himself 'The Snowman'

Although Hanks’ performance is weird and perhaps even “bad” by his standards, there’s no doubt that it’s perfect for the character and for Luhrmann's take on Elvis. There’s a lack of identity attached to the real Colonel Tom Parker, a man who was, by all accounts, larger than life and flamboyant, but ultimately something of a mystery. He was something of a chameleon, changing his name, background, and other details of his life whenever it suited him. Tom Hanks' subversion of one of music's most famous but enigmatic characters into something comically unrecognizable perfectly fits the total unknowability of the Colonel himself.

There have been many questions raised in regard to how accurate Elvis is, and what the movie changes to suit Baz Luhrmann's stylistically indulgent take on the legendary singer. Tom Hanks’ version of Colonel Parker is a character that is similarly adjusted to both underline and confuse the events of the movie. Because audiences are watching the movie through his perspective, his narration permeates even the most emotional moments with a certain untrustworthiness, and his accent only strengthens the idea that viewers are being manipulated. This is the Colonel’s show, and the exuberance with which he describes the rise and fall of "his boy” perfectly matches the maximalist aesthetic that Luhrmann uses for the movie, watching Elvis come alive in comic books and strange vignettes of his time in the Army.

At some point, however, the artificiality of it all begins to take over. The scenes of the Colonel rolling dice in a computer-generated dream casino start to look like the hallucinations of the flailing singer. It’s here that Elvis avoids a hated music biopic mistake: by linking the natural untrustworthiness and showmanship of the Colonel with the style of the movie, audiences can recognize that what they are seeing on-screen is more than likely to be fast and loose with the truth. For this reason, when the Vegas years commence, the audience can ignore the Colonel’s narration and side naturally with Elvis – who, at this point, sees the Colonel for the treacherous, darkly comic figure that he is.

With the weird prosthetics and the off-kilter accent, Tom Hanks successfully depicts the Colonel as a nationless circus creature in Elvis. To laugh at his performance is to recognize it as ridiculous, while also giving room to easily underestimate how vicious he can be underneath it. Against Austin Butler’s exceptionally accurate portrayal of Elvis Presley, Tom Hanks' buffoonish Colonel Parker can be discovered – and thus remembered – through the movie as a joke, a character who unsuccessfully measured his own legacy alongside the boy that he mistakenly believed was his.

Next: Elvis Proves Baz Luhrmann's Next Movie Will Be Even Better

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