Review: Priscilla

Image courtesy of A24.

Comparing Sofia Coppola's "Priscilla" to Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis" is like night and day in that the latter was an exuberant jukebox musical filled with flashy editing and the director's trademark over-the-top style, while Coppola's film is more visually muted and tells a story that is less romantic in its portrayal of the king of rock 'n roll. 

Whereas Luhrmann's film was a visually zippy life-and-times-of biopic that detailed the typical rise and fall of a superstar, Coppola's picture tells the tale from the perspective of Presley's wife, portrayed here with aplomb by Caillee Spaeney, and is based on her 1985 memoir, "Elvis and Me." 

The story portrays Priscilla as a woman who's caught in a trap - she's a bird in a gilded cage - and can't walk out. Thematically, the film fits in with a number of the best films in Coppola's oeuvre about women in some form of captivity - the girls locked up by their overbearing parents in "The Virgin Suicides," the young woman left by her famous husband in a hotel in Tokyo in "Lost in Translation" and, of course, the queen isolated in her lavish palace in "Marie Antoinette."

It's easy to see why Priscilla, at age 14, becomes transfixed with Elvis (Jacob Elordi). She's a lonely girl living in Germany with her military father and mother, and a soldier approaches her at a diner where he tells her that she can meet the iconic musician - who's serving in the military for a stint and is the fantasy romantic idol for most of her classmates - at a party at his house. Once there, it's almost as if she were brought there to fulfill some sort of destiny. She and Elvis quickly take to each other, despite his being 21 years of age, and a relationship of sorts blossoms.

This relationship is mostly carried out through letters and, at first, is chaste. For more than a year, he doesn't write her and when they are together, he will barely touch her - whether this is because he doesn't want to sleep with her until they are married as he says or because he knows that doing so would be against the law is for viewers to judge. This doesn't prevent him from having flings with other women that Priscilla reads about in the press.

Once she agrees to move to Graceland a few years later and live with his extended family, she finds herself more and more under his control. He tells her she has to choose between working - she wants to work part-time at a salon - and her relationship with him, and he at times becomes aggressive physically, especially during a pillow fight and during a moment of tension when discussing new material for his next album.

Lisa Marie Presley, prior to her death, had objected to Coppola's script, but it seems difficult to have portrayed this story without there being a vibe of predatory behavior in it. At one point, Priscilla's father legitimately asks why Presley can't find a woman his own age - rather than her - since he's probably the most famous entertainer in the world at that point.

All of this material is handled delicately and while it's easy to side with Priscilla, a young girl who is somewhat kept captive while her famous husband runs all over the country, the film is more overt in how it handles the power structure in their relationship. Priscilla is seen as being a captive at Graceland, although the film doesn't go so far to portray Elvis as the villain.

For a movie with subject matter that's - let's be honest - a little heavy, "Priscilla" still has the look and feel of a Sofia Coppola movie - that is to say, vibrant and engaging - especially when it gets into some of Elvis' more eccentric behavior. We get a glimpse of the Bible study phase, an LSD trip, a few nods to the couple's obsession with martial arts and the increasingly outrageous outfits. For a movie that features a musician with such an iconic body of work, it's funny that there are only a few Elvis songs in the picture.

The film essentially follows the period of time during which Priscilla, as a girl, met Elvis to the time when she finally leaves him. While Presley's behavior has an obviously much darker edge here than in Luhrmann's movie, which I also liked, the film treats his ultimate downfall as a self-made tragedy, whereas the place where we finally leave Priscilla is one of liberation. 

Coppola's films frequently follow female characters who must struggle to find their way in a male-dominated world made up of rules that limit their freedom. As such, "Priscilla" is another solid entry in her overall body of work.