52 Films by Women Vol 8. 13. Priscilla (Director: Sofia Coppola)

Still courtesy of A24 Films (US) / Mubi (UK)

For her eighth film as writer-director, Priscilla, Sofia Coppola re-tells the true story of young Priscilla Beaulieu’s relationship with the controlled and controlling pill popper, Elvis Aaron Presley, singing star and icon, characterised in the movie by a twitchy leg that, when he sits down, never stops moving. Constrained to some extent by being unable to use Elvis’ tunes – he is only shown performing a Jerry Lee Lewis number, ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’ – Coppola concentrates on the limited viewpoint of her titular protagonist, who first is introduced to Elvis in 1958 and, after spending some time with him at parties hosted in his house while he is on military service in Wiesbaden, Germany finds herself left behind then summoned by him, then left behind and so forth. Referring to her as Cilla or ‘Satnin’ – weirdly the nickname Elvis also gave to his late mother – the star attracts and repels Priscilla in equal measure until she finally decides to leave him.

Coppola is fascinated with the relationship that young women have with charismatic but complicated older men in films such as Lost in Translation, Somewhere and On the Rocks, men who see but don’t fully acknowledge the woman in front of them. It isn’t Coppola’s only subject – she is also interested in lives conducted in protective bubbles, whether wealthy or provided by a community of women – and the limited agency that can be exercised within them. Coppola’s films don’t resonate with large audiences, but they invite interest in the games that take place in privileged places, behind closed doors.

The film opens with Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) fully installed in Graceland, Elvis’ (surprisingly small) Memphis mansion, walking on plush pink carpet with her naked feet, her toenails painted scarlet. Coppola cuts to 1958 and fourteen-year-old Priscilla sitting in the Eagle Café at the army base where her father (Ari Cohen) is stationed and approached by a gentleman who explains that he books the music there and would like to introduce her to Elvis Presley. ‘He likes to meet people from home,’ the gentleman explains. Father isn’t keen. While the family are enjoying a meal, the gentleman speaks to Priscilla’s father, describing how Priscilla will be collected and returned home.

Immediately, we sense that Priscilla is being procured for her youth and lack of agency. At the same time, Elvis (Jacob Elordi) first seen from a medium distance amongst his army pals, is mourning for his late mother. He’s far from home undertaking military service, at the same time fully aware of his iconic status. Elordi plays him as a brooding, vacant man, who doesn’t want to draw too much attention to himself but veers constantly towards inappropriate behaviour. At their first meeting, Elvis shows off a bit, playing the piano with energy and ease, catching an empty glass that falls from the top of it with one hand, the very definition of a party trick. He is surprised by Priscilla’s age (‘I thought you were younger’) which only makes him seem creepy.

The use of ‘Whole Lotta Shakin Going On’ puts us in mind of Jerry Lee Lewis’ marriage to teenager Myra Gale Brown when she was thirteen years old. Similarly, Coppola uses the piece of music, ‘Gassenhauser’ by Erik Charlston, associated with Terrence Malick’s Badlands, a film about a brooding James Dean lookalike (Martin Sheen) who kills the father of his fifteen-year-old girlfriend (Sissy Spacek) after he opposes their relationship. In the South, as American movies often remind us, they do things different, although it speaks to a desire of a certain kind of man who likes to mould young women before they have the confidence to think for themselves. In Coppola’s film, Elvis asks Priscilla to go upstairs on her own and take a seat in his bedroom. He’ll come up in a little while to talk to her. We don’t know if anyone is fooled – or cares – about this routine, but we know what to expect. Coppola cuts to a group of women, who we assume are the wives and girlfriends of Elvis’s buddies, one of whom remarks on Priscilla’s age.

Elvis does surprise us, not making a move of the young teenager, rather asking Priscilla about the music that people are listening to back home. ‘Have they forgotten about me?’ The question speaks to his ego, a pretence at vulnerability. Except that it might have some substance. Elvis spent his career under the control of Col. Tom Parker and of his father, Vernon (Tim Post). His agency is limited.

Priscilla gets a second invitation to Elvis’s digs and is introduced to his elderly grandmother (Lynne Griffin) nicknamed Dodger, because she is always dodging things. Elvis exudes easy going affection towards others, but he has his proprietorial side, as Priscilla discovers later. What he doesn’t do is exploit her sexually. Coppola isn’t interested in taking down ‘the King’ (as he was sometimes billed) though she’s not shy about showing how downright weird life in Graceland could be. She also shows his career frustration, mumbling along to Humphrey Bogart when he takes Priscilla to a screening of Beat the Devil. He wants to study method acting and be like James Dean; Priscilla (none too convincingly) assures him he could do it.  

After leaving Germany, Elvis doesn’t get in touch with Priscilla for several years, until she gets a phone call in 1962, in which he invites her to stay with him. ‘My father won’t approve,’ she replies. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that,’ Elvis tells her.  Few directors would attempt a thrilling montage that involves a first-class airline ticket set to electronic music, but Coppola does just that – cheaper than showing a plane taking off. Coppola doesn’t show any doubts that Priscilla might have had about being summoned by Elvis. The Presley family have followed propriety – and that’s enough. Priscilla’s mother, Ann (Dagmara Dominczyk) is genuinely thrilled for her. Her father remains suspicious.

Life in Graceland is weird, with Elvis and his family restricting what Priscilla could do and where she could go.  At this point, we are never clear why Elvis fixated on Priscilla to the extent that he did. By contrast, in Baz Luhrmann’s zippy cartoon of a biopic, Elvis, we can see Priscilla’s fire, her energy. Spaeny’s Priscilla is a dreamy schoolgirl who wants to mature but constantly has to obey the rules. Rule One: stay in school and pass her exams. Rule Two: when playing with her new puppy, stay off the front lawn, she shouldn’t be making a spectacle of herself. Rule Three: don’t wear print dresses, they take away from her eyes. Rule Four: stay out of the room where Elvis’ fan mail is being answered. Don’t you see the sign? It’s for employees only. Rule Five: take this pill.

Elvis shares his medication with Priscilla early on, offering her a pill – Placidyl - to stay awake in class. (Placidyl? Wasn’t he an Italian tenor?) Coppola makes clear that Elvis doesn’t think this is unusual; he is not corrupting her, rather inviting her to do what he does. It is tempting to see Priscilla as a mirror image for Elvis. She was certainly styled to reflect better upon him. However, one pill that he offers makes Priscilla stay in bed for two days. What was he thinking? Throughout, Priscilla expects Elvis to have sex with her, but he refuses. ‘The timing isn’t right,’ he mumbles. It is as if he is genuinely conflicted, not wanting to be bound to Priscilla and wanting also only have sex with her during marriage. It is notably that Priscilla is sent to a Catholic school to finish her education.

Still courtesy of A24 Films (US) / Mubi (UK)

She does make some demands of her superstar boyfriend, though not that these make him love her more – it’s hard to fathom exactly what this screen Elvis is thinking. First, when she finishes school, she asks him to stay away from the ceremony to not draw attention away from the other graduates. She also flies out to Los Angeles to confront him about a reported affair with Swedish model turned actress Ann-Margret. ‘Typical starlet,’ Elvis explains. ‘Wants to be seen with me to advance her career.’ Neither Priscilla nor the audience is convinced. No sooner than she arrives than Elvis sends her home. ‘It’s not a good time for me right now.’ When Elvis tries to get Priscilla to share his interest in faux spirituality introduced to him by his hairdresser – hairdressers don’t know religion, they’re just aerosols – she screams at him. In the end, the Colonel makes him burn his books. Priscilla watches. This does not seem like a bad thing.

Elvis also buys Priscilla a pistol. She is taught how to shoot. Unlike in ‘Hedda Gabler’, a pistol introduced into the drama doesn’t go off in Act Five. We see a series of pistols matched to different outfits. Barbie got to pack!

The lifestyle Elvis introduces Priscilla to certainly is seductive. In one sequence, they go off to Vegas. Elvis turns heads, though not too much because the gamblers might lose their winnings. Priscilla plays cards, though mistakenly thinks she has twenty-one. ‘That’s twenty-two’, Elvis tells her, demonstrating the limits of her Catholic education.

Elvis buys Priscilla a car and allows her to learn karate (but not take a part-time job). He’s not great at proposing. ‘We’re going to get married,’ he tells us, as if the decision, far too long in coming, was made by someone else. Finally, their relationship is consummated. Lisa is born. Priscilla experiences more of Elvis’s tetchy side. He listens to some songs and condemns them, then asks Priscilla what she thinks. ‘They lack something, they’re not catchy,’ she explains, appearing to support Elvis’s doubts. He throws a glass against the wall. That’s not what he wanted to hear; his violence is shocking. At one point, Elvis decides to send Priscilla home to stay with her parents for a while and packs her bag. In another scene, after another argument, she offers to leave, but he asks her to stay. Priscilla’s suspicion of Elvis’ relationship with his co-stars – not just Ann-Margret but also Stella Stevens – is the cause of most of the tension. There is more than one scene of her watching his bus leave Graceland while she stays at home. As their relationship matures, she predicts his mood swings.

Still courtesy of A24 Films (US) / Mubi (UK)

At no point do we see Priscilla with a confidante. There is a humorous moment when she struggles with her Maths test, looks at the girl next to her and asks her if she likes Elvis Presley – the girl moves her Maths paper towards the guileful Priscilla. The real Priscilla became a successful businesswoman, but you’d never guess that she had acumen from the movie.

While Elvis despises the movies he makes, his career is revitalised by a television special, followed by a tour. It is during the latter that there is a tipping point, after which Priscilla finally leaves her husband.

Coppola shows Elvis becoming increasingly boorish, though Elordi is not transformed into the overweight star of the 1970s – it is as if she can’t bear to ruin her actor’s good looks – though the limited budget and six-week shooting schedule may have played a part. Priscilla’s departure from Graceland is bitter-sweet, set to Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’, a song that Parton refused to allow Elvis to perform, since to do so would mean surrendering her rights to it. By the end, we are unsure which Elvis Priscilla was truly in love with once her schoolgirl crush had diminished. There didn’t seem to be much left.

Priscilla leaves its audience feeling cold. Essentially, it describes expectation but not fulfilment. Priscilla doesn’t truly share her husband’s life, rather remains an adjunct to it. We don’t fully understand why Elvis was obsessed by her, if indeed he was. To some extent, Coppola renders him human, being unsure about the jump suit he is asked to wear during performances. While Elvis chooses Priscilla’s dresses, he has less sartorial agency himself. There is no obvious chemistry between Elordi (fully immersed in the accent and the Presley swagger) and Spaeny (all moon-eyed stares and innocence). The film is fascinating in the same way that documentaries on the lives of the rich and famous exert a pull. However, it is all surface. Coppola doesn’t do melodrama. However, she leaves a space for audiences to think. Perhaps that’s why she hasn’t had a mainstream hit yet.

Reviewed at Curzon Canterbury, Saturday 6 January 2024 and on Mubi streaming service, Monday 1 April 2024