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PRISCILLA
Director: Sofia Coppola Cast: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Ari Cohen, Dagmara Dominczyk, Tim Post, Lynne Griffin, Dan Beirne, Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll, Dan Abramovici, Matthew Shaw, Tim Dowler-Coltman, R Austin Ball, Olivia Barrett, Stephanie Moore, Luke Humphrey MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:53 Release Date: 10/27/23 (limited); 11/3/23 (wider) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 26, 2023 By design, the United States doesn't have official royalty, but a few figures in politics and culture have emerged to take on that mantle in an unofficial capacity. In theory, Priscilla Presley would be one of those people. She was, after all, married to a man dubbed "the King," which would make her a queen. One imagines a life of fame, fortune, having everything you could ever want and even more than that, comfort and ease, knowing the right people and everyone knowing you, and, of course, love. Writer/director Sofia Coppola's Priscilla, though, sheds the luxury of Graceland and the dream of loving—and maybe being loved by—the most famous person in the world. It may be lonely at the top, but it's arguably lonelier just beneath that. Here, obviously, the focus is on Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny), who is 14 when she first meets the King, at his home near a military base in West Germany, as he was still enlisted at that time. At the time, her life is fairly normal, probably, for a military kid—missing home, not believing that these temporary surroundings are a home, feeling quite alone. When an officer notices her at a local diner and speaks to her in a complimentary way, young Priscilla's face lights up, albeit nervously, because she is just a teenager, and when the man drops that he has a wife, her face drops a bit, too. Who knows what little fantasies she has concocted in that brief moment of being noticed by an older, polite, and handsome man, but there's something there, because, again, she's 14 and dreaming of that something more than what her life is now. In this moment, it becomes clear that Coppola genuinely cares about Priscilla as a person, not as some ideal or idea, which is what the opening montage of the film—in which Priscilla makes up her face and does up her hair and emerges looking like a completely different person than the one we're about to meet—suggests she has become. That notion of the perfectly made-up, coiffured, and attired wife to the King will belong to the world eventually, and it will be designed by the King himself, which is entirely a different matter that becomes a key part of this story. Adapting the Presley's autobiography (written with Sandra Harmon), Coppola wants us to see this shy, nervous, and smitten girl, who isn't prepared to meet an international celebrity and certainly isn't ready to take on all of the personal, professional, and psychological baggage that comes with being this particular man's wife. It's neither a dream, because reality rarely if ever allows a person to exist in a life that matches one's fantasy version of it, nor a nightmare, because the King does provide at least some hints of his best self and a lifestyle that's superficially comfortable. Priscilla's life eventually becomes more akin to an existence of restless sleepwalking or a purgatory in which everything she wants is right there, only to be frustratingly out of reach. The man who will become her husband eventually—which seems like quite the long time from Priscilla's perspective—is Elvis (Jacob Elordi), of course. He needs no introduction, but Coppola gives him a fine one, anyway—holding court in his rented home outside the base, playing a shaking piano and singing one of his hits, catching a glass that has been rocked from atop the piano with quick reflexes. He and Priscilla chat a bit, before she has to return home, and an unexpected and fairly chaste courtship follows. He is 24 when he meets her, after all, and when they meet a second time, he first speaks of still grieving his mother and then makes it clear that, while his intentions may be romantic, he wants this relationship to be a special one. Inevitably, the drugs, Elvis' multiple affairs in Hollywood with various celebrities, and all of his rougher and borderline or actually abusive qualities as a man follow. What's striking about Coppola's approach to this story—beyond the way the central performances humanize these two potentially larger-than-life figures of popular culture—is how it makes these characters seem perfectly ordinary and dulled by the routine of their anything-but-normal lives. Elvis
is regularly absent, either shooting movies or keeping up an emotional wall or
passed out on prescription medication, but what we see of him is a sad,
controlling, and manipulative man. He's present even when he's away from
Graceland, in other words. He holds such a sway on Priscilla's life, with all of
the rules about staying home and not allowing strangers on the estate, as well
as having so many family members and friends around him that earning his
attention is a competition she regularly isn't able to win. Priscilla's story, then, becomes a series of losing battles—losing any sense of who she is without this man, any sort of freedom to do and say and think what she wants, any feeling of being wanted or desired by the man she wants and desires so, and, eventually, any patience with being seen more as a concept of the perfect wife than as a human being. It's a melancholy and lonesome tale, often composed in shots of rooms and people in literal and figurative stasis. If Coppola doesn't provide us with any sense of who the eponymous character might become after this part of her life is finished, that makes Priscilla sadder still, in a way. She'll find that, but all of this, as the final song choice bluntly tells us, will remain. Copyright © 2023 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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