For a long time Elvis Presley has this air of invincibility and perfection around him, fueled by nostalgia from the baby boomers, with a strong assist from Austin Butler last year. So props to Sofia Coppola, who dares to give us another perspective. While Elvis is very much a part of Priscilla, Coppola’s movie is more about what Elvis was like from the point of view of his wife. Apparently Elvis looks like Jacob Elordi, lucky her!
Or was Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) really that lucky? A 14 year old daughter of a military family stuck in West Germany, Priscilla was pretty much a loner out of her element on a European military base. Chance arrives when she gets invited to a party, where 24 year old Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) was in attendance. The two became smitten with each other immediately, beginning a 13 year romance for the ages. And the tabloids. And some nightmares as well.
You might be surprised that no Elvis songs play during Priscilla. Well, after watching it, there’s no wonder the Presley estate did NOT want to let Sofia Coppola play his material. This movie is wholly from Priscilla’s point of view. This Elvis isn’t really a character: he’s merely a projection of what Priscilla was probably dealing with at the time. Coppola does a good job showing the blinders the poor girl had to figure out she had. I mean, she was an Elvis fan, and he was her first love. That’s a lot of emotional baggage to unpack for anyone, let alone a non celebrity with no real sense of self yet. As a result, Priscilla’s naive self worth is wholly tied to this giant figure of a man, who’s clearly happiest keeping her in his little box, ready to be opened when he says so. Priscilla slowly builds herself up little by little as time goes on, figuring out how to untangle her identity as Mrs. Elvis Presley from Priscilla, which is met with confusion and sometimes outright hostility from her busy, more powerful husband, further complicating her feelings. It’s a testament to Sofia Coppola that someone as magnetic as Jacob Elordi/Elvis can be sidelined for a story that at times can be as compelling as the pop star’s life…at least in small doses.
It’s also a testament to Cailee Spaeny. I always enjoyed when she would show up in things, but this is the actress’s first real test, and she passes with flying colors. Spaeny’s excellent at communicating with her face, as Priscilla was clearly forced to listen a lot. You feel everything she wants to say but can’t because Elvis is on another one of his big ideas that go nowhere. Spaeny very satisfyingly also grows Priscilla from a little girl into a strong women with no real support system, with a personality as big as her hair. Jacob Elordi is a nice match for her. Using Lilo & Stich to get the accent down (that’s a true story), Elordi’s years at Euphoria prepared him ably to play someone as a projection of someone else’s mind, like Marion Cotillard in Inception. Elordi walks the line between monster and hunk, perfectly tuned to help Cailee Spaeny really rise to the occasion in the tougher role.
It’s gonna give me no pleasure when Priscilla gets little awards consideration compared to the flashier 2022 film. But hey, at least Sofia Coppola and Cailee Spaeny got to reset the record a little bit. Elvis wasn’t a god: he was a man, and a flawed one at that. And Priscilla deserves to be better remembered than just being someone’s wife. She had one of the great hairdo’s of all time too.