A freshman in high school and living at yet another military base, this time in Bad Nauheim, Germany where her father, Paul (Ari Cohen), was stationed, Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) could hardly believe it when she was invited to a house party being thrown by the one and only Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi).  The two become fascinated by each other, but Elvis soon moves back to the United States to continue working on his music and burgeoning film career.  After much convincing of her father, Priscilla is allowed to move to Graceland on the condition that she finish out her education at a Catholic school.  She stays true to her promise to her father, graduates, and eventually marries Elvis, but life with the superstar is dark and lonely, and living inside of the gilded cage proves not to be the life that Priscilla desires for herself. 

Sofia Coppola writes and directs Priscilla, an adaptation of Priscilla Presley’s memoir, “Elvis and Me,” for A24.  Premiering at the Venice Film Festival where Spaeny was awarded the Volpi Cup and Coppola a nomination for the Golden Lion, the 113-minute, decades-spanning biopic is more a tone poem about isolation than a more traditional document of its subject’s life.  The film was notably made without the blessing of the Presley Estate thereby blocking the use of any of Elvis’ music in the film, but it was made in cooperation with Priscilla Presley, so it still offers a peak behind the curtain at what life was like at the Memphis, TN mansion while “The King” still occupied the throne. 

The film’s action is episodically structured, punctuated by fades to black, and instead of building towards a more traditional narrative climax, it instead simmers away in this purposefully uncomfortable emotional territory for Priscilla while never quite boiling over.  In this way, it is very reminiscent of Pablo Larrain’s work when he studied some of the tragic heroines of modern popular culture.  These women – Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana – were placed under immense stress due to their affiliation with men in power and as such, they had to remain polished when the peering paparazzi lens wanted nothing more than to capture an illusion-shattering shot of them experiencing real human emotion at some of the most harrowing moments of their lives.  It is a disgusting aspect of fame, but a profitable one, and so it continues to this day. 

Released on the heels of the Presley-estate sanctioned Elvis (2022) by Baz Luhrmann, the comparisons to this film are unavoidable, but structurally the better question comes when looking at the even more recent Barbie (2023) from Greta Gerwig.  There is much ado around the Matell vehicle asking if Ryan Gosling’s infinitely meme-able performance steals the film away from Margot Robbie in the title role.  In the same way, one of the toughest hurdles for Copolla to clear is how does her film keep Priscilla in focus.  Physically, Spaeny shrinks next to Elodri who towers over everyone he shares the frame with, but Philippe Le Sourd’s camera wisely uses these levels to the film’s advantage.  As Priscilla becomes more and more confident as the apple of Elvis’ eye, the high angle becomes less and less severe, but in the fallout of any of the superstar’s outbursts, she once again occupies a smaller corner of the frame.  Spaney does quite well holding the energy of the scene, but next to Elodri’s inherent charm as he fills Elivis’ charismatic shoes it is impossible not to feel the cooling of her star, but the assist from Le Sourd helps to make sure the film is always filtered through Priscilla’s point of view. 

Spaney’s performance is incredibly nuanced and a huge ask of the young actor who must portray the role from young a teenager through to adulthood.  She is heavily aided by Stacey Battat’s costumes and a hair and makeup team led by Cliona Furey and Jo-Ann MacNeil respectively, but that is not to take away from the growth she portrays.  Had it not been based on fact, the arc could be written off as a Disney princess, rags-to-riches type story, and looking at it as such, it certainly retains a more traditional German ending that tended to be sanded down before being animated by the studio in its heyday.  Priscilla, here, is more of a tragic figure than anything, and Spaney helps navigate the narrative as she awakens to her own abuses and begins to take control over her life.  What is most notable about this film is how little it spends its time explaining what Priscilla is going through, or flooding the narrative with scenes chock full of modern language rejecting the allure of turning the film in the therapy session as read on Twitter.  Looking at it on the page, it does not need the buzz words to elicit a response from audiences and that Spaney can thread the needle so adeptly throughout is an added bonus.  She captures that juvenile fantasy of being noticed by a celebrity crush so perfectly, and while she enjoys long runs of a life without consequence, the monkey’s paw begins to curl around her neck until she finally breaks from its grasp leaving behind her life as Elvis’ doll to be brought down from the shelf when he needs comfort and tossed aside when he feels angry or grows bored.   

Finally, the film cannot be truly discussed without meaningful mention of the 6’ 5” elephant in the room, Elordi, who portrays Elvis as a great pretender.  The story tracks Elvis at his most private and vulnerable moments, and Elordi lends himself to the material so well. He shines in his own way, even without the sequined pomp that was afforded to Autin Butler a year prior. This more sensitive approach shows Elvis struggling from a young age with pills, a desire to be taken seriously as an artist, and contending with the weight of outdoing himself with each subsequent album in a music landscape that is shifting away from his sound into unfamiliar territory. The tortured artist, though, also gives in to his demons more than once across the film, not only engaging in a romance with the much younger Priscilla but giving way to fits of rage across the span of the narrative and leveraging his size and his fame to his advantage. It is not a wholesome image of the superstar, but Elordi manages to play with audiences using his “awe shucks” sensibility in lieu of an apology putting us right into the same emotional place as Priscilla, winning us back over with his charm time and time again.

Priscilla, thematically, is more about the shattering of a dream and the reclamation of power over one’s own trajectory than it is a distillation of facts about its subject; an approach that is both to its benefit and its detriment. Copolla assembles these moments into something that has a very loose arc about it, but it can be a frustrating exercise in that it never feels like it is propelling forward to something; rather, it is a litany of abuses suffered by a young girl which are, understandably, difficult to watch. Relying so much on the more personal and intimate moments of their life together, Priscilla plays like a melancholic memory featuring only the highest of highs or the lowest of lows. Sarah Flack edits this dreamy romance into more of a romantic thriller that unfolds in Patricia Cuccia’s meticulously designed sets, and as the walls of Graceland tighten around Priscilla, it is not until the final moments accompanied by an inspired music cue courtesy of Dolly Parton that audiences finally remember to breathe, only now noticing they have been holding their breath in suspense at the horrors that have played out before them.