Graceland retrouvé

Warning! Don't try to watch this movie without an IQ in excess of 100 and don't try to watch it with your brain... watch it with your heart.

It's clear why this movie didn't appeal to many audiences. It uses uncertainty and ambiguity like a craftsman. It raises more questions than answers. It suggest that a side of life exists that most people rarely suspect much less see.

Harvey Keitel is an unlikely angel hitching his way back to Graceland. The movie illustrates our unwillingness to accept the fact that our world is what we say it is and what we say it isn't.

Hidden in this predictably country and western-flavored, womanizing, motel tour across the southern countryside is an Elvis look-alike that doesn't look like Elvis, but knows things that only Elvis knows, and even wears the same shoe size as Elvis.

And the bottom line... the road less traveled that Elvis clearly steers for each person he encounters is redemption... personal transformation. But then, angels really don't make good entertainment, do they?

"Finding Graceland" is a sweet, fascinating movie that will take you through a whole landscape of unlikely characters who show up unexpectedly and manage to leave their perfect gifts behind. It is a road movie in which the adventures are spiritual. When Keitel announces that he is Elvis, you suspect that he is delusional but, before the movie ends he will convince you that what you think you know is not necessarily the way things are. Keitel is wonderful at playing tough guys but I think he really shines as an actor in his smaller and more low-key movies like this one and Smoke. The cast is excellent - some playing celebrity impersonators who are real, complex human beings with personalities of their own. Bridget Fonda as a tender, almost motherly, Marilyn Monroe is great fun to watch. I've seen this movie several times and it holds up well, always revealing new layers of story and message. Wonderful scenery, a classy car, excellent performances, and a quirky plot make this a worthwhile movie to watch. Maybe even to watch over and over. I hope you like it as much as I do.

This is the kind of film you'll be debating a year after you see it. Harvey Keitel at his best.

The film should have been nominated somewhere.

This is a truly adult film with no easy answers, but with fascinating people involved in a plot worth your close attention.

With only the sketchiest details beforehand, I expected nothing more than a flimsy "Elvis lives" flick (Then why was I watching? Good question). But this picture has a great deal to say about dealing with pain and loss brought on by reality, about finding one's own identity, about emotional interaction.

Perhaps it tries to say too much. There are loose ends, a too-heavy reliance on coincidence, and an idecision as to whether blind fate or human dynamics controls the course of one's existence. So be it. A quasi-philosophical approach to human destiny featuring Elvis and Marilyn? I'll take it.

Harvey Keitel was so badly miscast as any sort of Elvis that I was at first appalled by his having been chosen for the part (Did they need some sort of "name" in the credits?) But by the time the picture's themes began to emerge, it made a great deal of sense for someone totally impossible as Elvis to be playing the role. The story justified it. The character wasn't Elvis.....but he was.....but he really wasn't.

If you found some or all of what I did in this movie, you will enjoy Clint Eastwood's "Bronco Billy."

Pure enchantment and intrigue... enter this movie to witness Harvey Keitel stand up for the spirit, if not the flesh, of Elvis. Johnathon Schaech (as Byron Gruman) portrays a grieving husband traveling east who picks up the hitch-hiking Keitel, who claims to be Elvis making his way back to Graceland to reveal his 20-year plot to disappear. Little known to Byron, Elvis has a hidden agenda, and at every turn produces magic from all those who surround him. His true identity and intentions drag you into the plot and you teeter on not believing, and wanting to believe. Bridget Fonda enters as a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, and she and Byron both pursue the enigma of Elvis, all the way to the real Graceland. In the end, it is the journey, not the destination that matters, and Keitel produces an unforgettable character true to our images of the real Elvis... and yet... this movie is not about Elvis, it is about the heart, and dreams, and hope. The charm of this movie will linger with you (however improbable), as in "Local Hero", "Cinema Paradiso", or "The Swimmer" (Burt Lancaster), or even "One Special Christmas", or "Field of Dreams". Don't miss this performance, it's on my list of "must see at least once".