The King
Oscilloscope | Release Date: June 22, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
6
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 19, 2018
It’ll be on PBS at some point, but don’t wait. Seeing it in a cinema has a hint of religious experience about it. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubGwen IhnatJun 20, 2018
Elvis achieved a skyrocketing success previously unseen in pop culture, and then became his own victim by letting it get away from him. As Jarecki proves with this extended, sometimes bumpy, but still worthy metaphor, it’s the same with the U.S. We’ve been coasting along for so many years, taking democracy for granted, that the entire structure of the nation is now in peril. Read full review
91
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 28, 2017
A documentary as sprawling and brilliant and flawed as the country it traverses, Eugene Jarecki’s The Promised Land is a fascinatingly overstuffed portrait of America in decline. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 21, 2018
Wildly ambitious, thoroughly entertaining and embellished with some snaky moves, Eugene Jarecki’s documentary The King is a lot like its nominal subject, Elvis Presley. Read full review
90
TimeStephanie ZacharekJun 21, 2018
Perceptive, probing and ultimately devastating, The King is for anyone who cares about where this country has been and where it’s headed. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJul 18, 2018
As he proves again, few directors have Jarecki's skill for pulling a massive stack of disparate themes – race, celebrity, power, wealth, drug addiction, poverty, militarism – into one coherent narrative. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 20, 2018
It's hard to pinpoint exactly when this random, scattershot, overreaching movie stops spinning its wheels and starts flying on a cumulative power that floors you. But when it happens – kapow! By the end we’re looking at Elvis, America and ourselves with new eyes and wondering, once again, if the truth really can set us free. Read full review
83
The PlaylistChris BarsantiJul 19, 2018
By the time Jarecki is done with Elvis, the lanky, and projects-raised, rockabilly kid just one generation removed from sharecroppers has been cast as everything from an opportunist and grasping capitalist to addled addict to just plain sucker. If he ever was the King, the movie suggests, it’s long past time to retire the crown. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleAug 26, 2018
This is not just a biopic, or a bunch of worthies singing the praises of the King of Rock and Roll and hoping thereby to get a dribble of the blue suede limelight. Rather, it is a thought experiment, an argument, an essay in the true sense of that word, which is truly revealing. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawAug 23, 2018
Just when we thought it was impossible to say something new about , documentary film-maker Eugene Jarecki pulls it off. Read full review
80
Screen DailySarah WardMay 28, 2017
Promised Land deftly flits from biography to impact study to cinematic essay on the boom and bust of happiness-peddling myths, drawing a clear line from the music king to the current US leader. Read full review
80
The GuardianJordan HoffmanMay 28, 2017
Jarecki uses Elvis Presley’s career and influence to help us make sense of fame, power, corruption, self-destructive behaviour and pretty much all the other ills of the world. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerJul 12, 2018
Jarecki picks up all sorts of celebrated people and thinkers – probably too many. I would have liked to hear more from Elvis’s Graceland cook and less from Alec Baldwin. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyJul 11, 2018
The idea behind Eugene Jarecki’s nonfiction film The King — you can’t really call it a documentary — is crazy-good inspired. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJul 11, 2018
It’s one that speaks not just to Presley’s (and, arguably, America’s) fall from grace, but to the imperfections — and, yes, the lofty ambitions — of this strange, in some ways beautiful and in some ways overburdened little film. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyJun 22, 2018
The King has a restless, kaleidoscopic, take-a-snapshot-and-move-on energy. In many ways, it's a documentary about everything, it's a documentary about "then" and it's a documentary about "right now." Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenJun 14, 2018
The King benefits from a quality that's usually a liability in nonfiction films: Its scattershot structure gets at the truth of pop culture as an ineffable chimera that defines much of the world. Read full review
75
The Film StageRory O'ConnorMay 28, 2017
If Jarecki struggles a little with this alchemy at times it is because Promised Land is essentially three movies in one: a detailed account of the King’s career; a loose account of the last 80 years of American politics; and a musical performance film. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 12, 2018
The King is one of those films that we sometimes see being made while they're making it. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanJun 18, 2018
Promised Land is a searching, flawed, let’s-try-this-on-and-see-how-it-looks movie. At times, it veers too close to being a standard Elvis chronicle, and at others its insight into our national neurosis may strike you as a tad ethereal. It’s an essay in the form of an investigation. Yet it’s the definition of tasty food for thought. Read full review
70
VoxAlissa WilkinsonMay 28, 2017
Elvis as a metaphor for America is a genius of an idea, and that central theme of Promised Land really works, even though it feels sometimes like the musician’s life is being edited and bent to fit a narrative. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeAug 26, 2018
What we get is closer to early Vegas Elvis – a little bloated and befuddled, and not as light on his feet as he needs to be. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKimber MyersJun 28, 2018
The end result is sprawling and often unfocused, with a reach that exceeds its grasp. Read full review
50
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonJun 21, 2018
For as well-intentioned as Jarecki may be, The King starts with a conclusion and works backward from there, and the results are more than a little tenuous. Read full review
50
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlJun 21, 2018
Honestly, I’d probably love this film’s wandering spirit and Elvis-is-everywhere philosophizing if it were half as fast or twice as long, if it pinned any thought down long enough to really TCB. Instead, it’s as scattered and disorienting as the infamous LP Having Fun With Elvis on Stage, an official cheapie that consisted of nothing but the King’s between-songs Seventies stage banter. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinMay 28, 2017
Even if one agrees with Jarecki's progressive political position, making Elvis into a metonym for the nation's spiritual corruption starts to feel too much like a contrived rhetorical sleight of hand. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 28, 2018
This documentary feature is fascinating and infuriating in unequal parts, the latter far outweighing the former, since Mr. Jarecki’s instrument is a shoehorn. Read full review
38
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonJul 12, 2018
At times, Jarecki seems to be actively avoiding insight and empathy. Read full review
35
Film Journal InternationalDaniel EaganJun 21, 2018
The King tries to reclaim Presley by untangling the myths surrounding him. But with its dubious assertions and utter lack of empathy for its subject and his milieu, all The King ends up doing is further cloud our understanding of the musician. Read full review
25
The Associated PressMark KennedyJun 20, 2018
Throughout The King, you can feel Jarecki desperately working, slicing, trying to make connections. What could have been a gentle, personal travelogue is reworked and reworked until it’s often guilty of the last sin of Elvis — excess. Read full review
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