“We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy. And how you ended up knowing what colors went together.”
– The Virgin Suicides (1999)
When director Sofia Coppola veers into the brains of the many women that star in her filmography, what she’s usually after is an insight into perspective. Particularly the perspective of a woman in a world so heavily controlled by men. So, of course, the decorated director eventually made her way to Priscilla Presley, the fashion icon who’s much better known for having a front row seat to one of the most famous and enigmatic humans to ever exist. When a 24-year-old Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) first approaches 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny), he towers over the young girl to an egregious degree. She is overwhelmed but also starstruck and extremely fascinated. He is nervous, shy, and a little unsure of himself. This isn’t Austin Butler’s Elvis, who succeeded greatly at portraying the celebrity of Elvis. Elordi’s performance is centered on the man, at least the man as we’re intended to believe the real-life Priscilla Presley remembers him to be.
The film is based on Priscilla’s autobiographical Elvis and Me: The True Story of the Love Between Priscilla Presley and the King of Rock N’ Roll. The movie, like the book, tells the story of a whirlwind romance that many young girls have only fantasized about. As well as the cold realities that accompany that fantasy. Elvis, at the peak of his fame, is entranced by the young Priscilla, almost putting her in Carbonite until she’s of age – allegedly. In the meantime, she’s swept away in his aura and many riches, a dream life so engrossing that she can nary focus on a single thing at school. For she must have felt like the luckiest girl in the world – to be not only pursued, but openly desired by the most famous entertainer on the planet.
For anyone who’s seen Elvis (2022), you know Baz Luhrmann enacted a blistering, breakneck pace that made Elvis’ grand life seem like it flashed before your eyes in about 15 minutes. Coppola’s film is deliberately the antithesis. It’s colorful, but the shades are more faded, resembling a dream-like state rather than Luhrmann’s Mountain Dew music video. The film also, despite clocking in at 49 minutes shorter than its 2022 counterpart, moves much slower, dragging out the details of this famed saga. This will turn off some viewers, who may question why Priscilla’s story deserves such an intense microscope. To be clear, Priscilla doesn’t tell us much of what we don’t know or couldn’t infer ourselves about the iconic couple. But its introspection isn’t without merit, and the movie’s key takeaways are quite simple – 1) Elvis’ celebrity and hubris caused him to take his great love for granted and 2) Priscilla’s early entrapment prevented her from choosing her own destiny in life.
It’s a strange dynamic that the movie lays bear – Elvis pursues her relentlessly but seems uninterested in Priscilla once he has his prize. Their sex life suffers as Elvis seems to prioritize reading books over lovemaking, a problem so persistent that at one point he’s forced to burn the books (LOL). Elvis urges Priscilla to embrace a more feminine look, while in another moment, he relishes the moment when she practices shooting a handgun for sport. But none of these things are her ideas. She’s perpetually at the mercy of whatever Elvis thinks is best for her. For a time, she probably believed that what he wanted was best.
Meanwhile, Elvis the showman is almost completely absent, no doubt a deliberate choice. We are treated to one fiery performance on a piano, as well as a brief montage of Elvis’ stage persona. But there’s no showstopping performances like Luhrmann’s film. That’s by choice as the gaze is limited to Priscilla’s purview. Early on, Elvis mentions to Priscilla that he greatly desires to establish a career as a movie star (he’s a huge Marlon Brando fanboy). This reference is pretty enticing, as it almost promises we’d get to see Elordi’s Elvis tackle the acting portion of the star’s career. But no such moment occurs, as that version of Elvis is obfuscated because Priscilla wasn’t there to witness it herself. This sense of perspective is made obvious by where Coppola chooses to place her camera – always near the height of the 5’1 Cailee Spaeny. For example, when Elvis and Priscilla walk into a restaurant, the view is from her level. Ditto for when they take a seat. Coppola never relinquishes the point of view back to The King.
Spaeny and Elordi are trusted with carrying this story and both do so with aplomb. Elordi will have fans debating on who’s the better Elvis, but Spaeny’s sympathetic version of the title character is the movie’s spine. It also helps when the wardrobe department is looking out for you like what they’ve done for this woman, as she moves from one great fit to another as if she’s hosting an awards show. Although it also can’t be easy to pull off Priscilla’s absurdly large hairstyle, however Spaeny finds a way. But these aren’t showy, boisterous performances; they’re solemn, confused, and regretful. This may disappoint some who might be expecting more explosive moments. But Priscilla isn’t explosive; it’s about the gradual nature of time. Priscilla and Elvis quickly fall in love slowly make their union official, and that union slowly devolves. The story is about how a fantasy sluggishly fades, not all at once but piece by piece. In that vein, Coppola (who also wrote the adapted screenplay) is successful in bringing this perverse coming of age tale to life.
Does the movie overstay its welcome? It does to a certain degree – even at a runtime of an hour and 50 minutes, Coppola is in no hurry to rush any of these details. This leads to parts of the last half hour feeling a bit languid and uninteresting, long after the movie has made its point. Yet, there remains a sense of nostalgia and bittersweet remorse embedded in the story. Priscilla Presley lived a once-in-a-lifetime journey, but paid the price via heartbreak, psychological damage, and missed opportunities. Would she do it all over again? We can probably guess her answer. A well-known Country power ballad concludes the movie, echoing the bittersweet memories of a fleeting romance. However, I wonder if this movie will challenge some viewers to question if they’d accept this life at all. I think we’ll get our answer when we see how popular this couple will be for next year’s Halloween.
