Sofia Coppola’s foundations are rooted in examining the inner lives of adolescent girls born in a world of class and privilege. In The Virgin Suicides (1999), the Lisbon sisters are seen through the mythic, opaque scope of teenage boys who never grasp the difficult turmoils of being a teenage girl in an upper-middle-class suburbia. Coppola’s depiction of being a young woman reflects the hazy, undetermined prospects of what could be if one were to escape the drudgery of menial life. Her latest film, Priscilla (2023), feels in tandem with her directorial debut. We witness a young, impressionable fourteen-year-old girl, Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny), singled out by a colleague of one Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) and invited to tag along for a party (with her father’s permission). This back-and-forth courtship continues as Elvis’s military enlistment comes to a near. Priscilla feels she’s outgrown the daily life of schoolwork, parental expectations, and the ordinariness of her classmates.
After a while, Priscilla and Elvis become so acquainted that their nightly meetings tangle them to orbit each other’s atmosphere. Yet, while Priscilla’s young hormones want nothing but to pounce on Elvis, he rejects her advances, almost not wanting to ruin this imaginary version of a potential life partner. What does Priscilla mean to Elvis? A stand-in mother figure soon after his mother died? The ordinary normie that has no tether to fame and notoriety? It’s unclear to the young and inexperienced Priscilla, but she can’t detach herself from the aurora of The King.
Elvis convinces Priscilla’s unsuspecting parents to move her out of their stationed base in Germany and become part of Graceland. In this isolated compound, Elvis and his loyalist goons hunker and enjoy their time and fortunes. Being outside, Priscilla can’t do as much but be part of the decor. She has no life of her own, no career to kill time, not even able to make friends she could bring home. The extravagant furniture, the colorful setting—it all feels as if Priscilla slowly sinks to be part of the Graceland property. She is left alone to her devices as Elvis spends most of his time in Hollywood or attempting to cement a James Dean-like status.
The bulk of Coppola’s film luxuriates in this setting, done splendidly so by production designer Tamara Deverell, as the “Graceland Priscilla” is subjected to feels something out of Kubrick’s The Shinning (1980). She walks through empty hallways, rooms filled with memorabilia that give off the airy feeling of being haunted by some specter—that spector being Elvis’s presence that she can’t quite grasp, no matter how hard she tries. When Elvis is back, she feels even more distanced and apart, as he doesn’t treat her like a loved one but more as an object with a specified playtime (and playtime that doesn’t include physical intimacy that Elvis consistently denies, making the dejected Priscilla feel more unloved).
Elvis shows his love by changing Priscilla into an image of his making; the type of dresses she can wear (and ones she can’t), her signature hairstyle, and her makeup feel like a construct Priscilla has to slip in, but how long can a person be a prisoner of someone’s fantasy? Coppola tracks Priscilla’s actualization, but in the typical fashion, Coppola’s heroines have always come into their own through naturalism that is unconcerned for film dramatics.
Cailee Spaeny anchors Priscilla’s journey with a tremendous amount of subtlety that is internalized without the outlet of long monologues, overacting, or even a sudden moment of decisiveness. This Priscilla is a wallflower soaking in every rejection of emotional and physical comfort, every cold shoulder projected by Elvis, and the unspoken feeling of being out of place in a world where every desire or want is a phone call away. Spaeny is phenomenal, offering so much through an eyeglance or a head tilt that fits nicely with Coppola’s directorial style.
The young innocence that seems engrained in the young Priscila slowly dissipates as her new world erases the young girl we first meet at the airbase, and she becomes a doll-sized person for Elvis to prod around like an ornament. It’s a difficult performance that teeters on feeling uncomfortable with the glaring age gap. Yet, Spaeny not only manages to hold her performance as she rises above the narrative and machinations that feel entirely independent of everything. It’s one of the best performances from a Sofia Coppola film and deserves recognition for the immense effort Spaeny emanates.
Elordi is simply marvelous. Coming off from Austin Butler’s overwhelming, often trying, portrayal of Elvis, Elordi manages to not rely on prosthetics or belching classic Elvis songs—he simply embodies the charming persona we imagine The King to be while retaining a sinister edge of anger and bitter resentment that bursts in unexpected moments. Initially, Elvis charms Priscilla with his already-established clout and down-to-earth ruggedness. Yet, the viewer is unsettled by the fact that the age difference is not only a ten-year age gap but also the staggering height difference between the two figures. Elvis looms over Priscilla like a lumbering giant with the swagger and style of a singer; Priscilla can only do so much but tilt her head up to catch a glimpse of his fragmented love for her. The casting is perfect—Spaeny and Elordi’s chemistry is infectious and endearing, which only strengthens the scenes of Elvis’s volatile anger and violence to feel disturbing and uncomfortable.
The film reaches a point where once Priscila and Elvis marry, consummate their marriage, and bring their child into the world, everything seems to feel fast-tracked to a rushed conclusion. It seems there may be more missing from the final cut. As Elvis’s health declines through substance abuse and his career becomes more pathetic, Priscilla starts to grow and mature. Unfortunately, her growth happens offscreen, leaving the viewer at a disadvantage. The blankness that aided Spaeny in the film now turns against her as the narrative quickly builds to a dramatic conclusion when she divorces Elvis and leaves Graceland. It’s a hindrance that Coppola’s screenplay feels underwritten right when Priscilla feels actualized from the fantastical image Elvis has created.
The film’s final shots do more for Spaeny’s performance as she departs with an open-ended glimmer of hope that soon awaits Priscilla and her daughter. And it’s a far more substantial impact than the underutilized Olivia DeJonge’s performance from Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (2022) had with her minimal screen time in a movie that feels twice as long as Coppola’s film.
Sofia Coppola is not one to change her storytelling, which can be a detriment for an artist tackling varying subject matters. Thankfully, her style is suited to the story she is telling with Priscilla, a woman who didn’t have a voice, unheard when contrasted to the loudest voice in music. It’s a fate not glamorized to be titillating but glamorized to isolate and confined to a box in which this year’s Barbie (2023) almost found herself trapped. Gerwig and Coppola have taken to the cinemas to portray some of pop culture’s most recognizable women in opposite directions. One is more arch and populist in entertaining a mass audience while speaking broadly through a corporate pop feminist lens. Priscilla is more subdued and subjective of a singular and specific experience.
Coppola may not have her Barbie-breakout moment with Priscilla, but once again demonstrates how far in tune she is of the teenage experience than most filmmakers (often men) who can’t be bothered to be in anyone’s shoes but their own. Coppola knows what it means to be in the shoes of someone’s shadows, as her career began by treading her father’s mobster trilogy. Thankfully, Coppola found her voice and has remained steadfast in not comprising what sells but rather what speaks to her.
Review Courtesy of Amritpal Rai
Feature Image Credit to A24 and Stage 6 Films via Harpers Baazar
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