After last year’s goofy “Elvis” failed to really bring us anything new about the actual man known as Elvis, it’s refreshing to see “Priscilla” come along a year later. Sofia Coppola’s biopic about Elvis’ iconic wife Priscilla is the absolute antithesis of a love story. It’s the anti-romance, and the unsensational depiction of Elvis and Priscilla and how their marriage and romance came out of a utilitarian circumstance more than a genuine love and passion. What may trouble fans of Elvis and Priscilla is that this is a movie that finally views Elvis in a new light. He was a man who was possessive, controlling, self-obsessed, and often times incredibly abusive.
Based on the book written by Priscilla Presley, “Priscilla” tells her story of 9th grade student Priscilla Beaulieu from her being smitten by Elvis, thrust in to his whirlwind success and private life, and hopelessly falling in love with him. Constantly in the tabloids, and isolated from the outside world, Priscilla becomes Elvis’ world famous spouse, but soon finds it increasingly difficult to live a life she wants to; she soon begins to decide on whether she wants to stay or start over.
Elvis is a man who transformed his girlfriend from a sex toy, in to one of his own gallery of collectibles, in to a replacement mother figure for his mom Grace after her death, and then just someone he was keeping around out of spite. Jacob Elordi doesn’t look a whole lot like Elvis but he’s so much better in the role than Austin Butler by miles. Elordi depicts Elvis as someone so completely different. On the outside he’s a showman, and someone who hid so much of his lack of complexity, and dimension with manipulation, and playing a character.
He’s someone so completely incapable of being himself that he’s almost never truly depicted as a genuine person with potential to be vulnerable, or sad. He’s always around people, always putting on airs, and is quite talented at making anyone feel alienated in a room full of people. Star Cailee Spaeny is perfect as Priscilla a young girl who looks like Elvis’ literal daughter when he first meets her, who is brushed up in to what might be every person’s absolute fantasy. She gradually comes to realize that Elvis and his life is anything but fantastic and spends a lot of her time trying to survive in a world built in and around artifice, where every moment she has lives and breathes around Elvis.
Her quest to seek some sense of independence is a sad one, and while the movie doesn’t entirely let her off the hook, she is ultimately another victim pulled in to Elvis’ storm, and barely made it out to restart her life anew.
“Priscilla” is one of the more underrated dramas of 2023, and it’s just a masterwork from Sofia Coppola.