Priscilla

The Plot: It’s 1959 and 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) was full of dreamy girlhood thoughts when she first encountered singer and movie star Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) at a party in West Germany where he was based during military service. He took a shine to her too and they kept in touch over the years, despite his ever-growing popularity in the US and beyond. He invites her to stay with him at his Graceland estate and that’s when the girl becomes a woman and a wife becomes a confidant in his story, as well as the star of her own story…

The Verdict: Last year, Baz Luhrmann delivered an overstuffed and overcooked biopic with Elvis. It came with all the bells, whistles and razzle-dazzle that one would expect from the extravagant director. One of the many things it lacked was a proper perspective on Elvis’ marriage to Priscilla, with the lady herself being little more than an extra in the story. It’s interesting then that Sofia Coppola’s latest film Priscilla has delivered a counterpoint response to Luhrmann by focusing the lense on the marriage of these two very different people who met at different stages of their lives. It’s a love-me-tender story filtered through Coppola’s refined and worldly female perspective but which achieves a much greater balance of character for both of these famous people. It’s framed through Priscilla’s initially ingenue perspective, but it’s also about Elvis too and how he viewed the world through her.

It makes sense then that Coppola’s script is adapted from the 1985 memoir Elvis And Me by Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon. By keeping the story confined to a certain time period and not stepping beyond that, it brings into sharper focus Priscilla’s loving but at-times troubled relationship with Elvis over the years and spares us his untimely demise. Even when the film ends, you want to know more about Priscilla’s life after Elvis when she came out of his tall shadow. If she was up for a sequel in a few years, Coppola could very well continue this story. For this film though, it works well enough as a standalone piece. There’s no fat on this story. It’s all well-paced with an emphasis on evoking the era, lifestyles and perspective of Priscilla as she’s thrust into a world that requires her to grow up that little bit faster.

Not that Priscilla was unprepared for it. Coppola discreetly moves past potential issues regarding the age difference and instead ramps up the coming-of-age element with sophisticated subtlety typical of her directorial style. She’s got a fine collaborator with Cailee Spaeny, who first came to attention in Pacific Rim: Uprising but has perhaps been waiting for a meatier role to show what she’s really capable of. She certainly delivers on the acting front here, portraying Priscilla as a quiet, confident but not unworldly young woman swept up in the showbiz world of Elvis – but still kept who she was and who she wanted to be in the bargain. There’ll be more of Spaeny next year in Alien: Romulus – she’s a name to watch. Equally impressive is Jacob Elordi, who gets the necessary swagger of Elvis but also the passion, anger, love and tenderness in those more intimate, domestic moments.

Priscilla then is an elegant triumph of direction and performance. It hints at the woman that Priscilla Presley will become, but is detailed enough to portray this stage of her life as not necessarily the key stage. It’s a story of Elvis and Priscilla yes, but there’s also a sense that her story is only really beginning. That’s an engaging way to depict this relationship and so too is this an engaging affair.

Rating: 4 / 5

Review by Gareth O’Connor