HEARTBREAK HOTEL. Directed and written by Chris Columbus; produced by Lynda Obst and Debra Hill for Touchstone. Starring David Keith, Charlie Schlatter and Tuesday Weld. Rated PG-13.
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Heartbreak Hotel is a hokey, but good-natured movie that doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe the fact that it's introduced as a "fable" about Elvis Presley accounts for this. Since I've never been much of an Elvis fan, it's hard for me to say if true believers will be touched or offended by Heartbreak Hotel. Maybe they'll be both.
Johnny (Schlatter) has a pretty mother, Marie (Weld), who's been down on herself since his dad took off. She idolizes Elvis (Keith), though, so what better cure for sagging self-esteem than a date with the king? And since he's playing a gig in nearby Cleveland, what could be more logical than to bop over and kidnan him?
Mad at first, Elvis eventually comes to appreciate this intrusion into his isolated, luxurious, but suffocating lifestyle. Johnny, supposedly, reminds him of his rock'n'roll roots, of how much fun it was not to play it safe.
Keith as a believeable Elvis is the most important element of Heartbreak Hotel. And for me he is o.k. He doesn't look so much like Elvis as move and, especially, talk like him. His singing isn't too far off, either.
The movie's other main character, though, is more of a problem. Johnny's supposed to be an angry young man, his attempts to play protest rock thwarted by small-town morality. But he's just too squeaky-clean to make the anger believeable. He's a lot closer to Michael J. Fox (in fact, he played Fox' brother in Bright Lights, Big City) than he is to Marlon Brando, or even Peter Fonda.
Weld steals the show from both of the guys, though, in spite of the brevity of her role. Just as freshly pretty as ever, she brings more appeal and down-to-earth acting expertise to Heartbreak Hotel than the rest of the cast put together.
October 26, 1988