When fourteen year old Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley, her life changes forever. Her parents worry when she moves to America to be with him that she will become enmeshed in the drug-frenzied world of Rock n’ Roll, but something far more sinister happens. Her life begins to revolve around just one thing: pleasing the ever more unpredictable Elvis. Sofia Coppola’s latest film charts the ten years they were together, their tumultuous relationship, as well as the personal growth of Priscilla herself. It focuses on Priscilla’s solitude and perceptiveness whilst the ‘King’ is placed in the background, a refreshing diversion from the usual fawning over Elvis Presley.

The movie is subversive for Coppola in that it is utterly quintessential. Everything, from the glass bottles of Coca Cola that the characters sip through striped straws, to the emotionally broken older man falling for the innocent and demure child, is a cliché. The glory of this film lies in its portrayal of the ignorance of first love. I’ve never heard so many groans of frustration from a cinema audience before. But it’s hard not to be frustrated with the young Priscilla Beaulieu (played by Cailee Spaeny) because she makes all of the wrong choices when she first falls in love, just like we did. Priscilla’s story is about an ordinary girl who is thrown into extraordinary circumstances, and yet throughout the film, she remains intensely relatable. 

The coquette trend that has been popular over recent years is a clear influence on the film. Stacey Battat, the costume designer of the film, focused on bows, slightly oversized kitten heels and non-patterned clothes; all things you can expect to find trending on Pinterest today. In fact, 2023 was deemed ‘the year of the doll’(https://open.spotify.com/episode/1wbMi1jLGO5j5RR8s6R9hJ?si=f5e8ec1935cf4afe&nd=1&dlsi=baed4372b3ab4a96). And even more so than Margot’s Robbie’s ‘Barbie’, Spaeny’s ‘Priscilla’ is a doll in the most basic sense; Elvis may dress her up how he likes, play with her when he is bored and expect her to be right where he found her when he comes back.  She is demure, submissive and quiet (which, as often happens with girls her age, is taken as a sign of maturity). She embodies our quintessential notion of girlhood more fully after she has moved away from her parents and across the world to be with her boyfriend, Elvis (played by Jacob Elordi). Whilst living in Germany, her clothes are ill-fitting and frumpy, she rarely smiles and seems to do nothing except go to school. It is in America that Priscilla truly blossoms. She does everything we expect of a teenage girl (because we did those things ourselves), she dyes her hair, wears thick eyeliner, sits on her bed, chewing a pencil while she does her homework. The clothes in this film are very important, as each outfit that Priscilla wears is a projection of the person that she thinks Elvis wants her to be. 

Although we’ve all done stupid things because we loved a boy, one can only watch in horror as the film progresses and Priscilla becomes totally incarcerated in the infamous ‘Graceland’ mansion. Once again, we are faced with another quintessential story – that of love that turns into abuse. Elvis’ utter self-obsession is portrayed excellently (through little details such as initials on all of his pyjamas and calling those who praise him excessively ‘spiritual leaders’). Coppola clearly understands his psychology and researched him thoroughly because although his co-dependent relationship with his mother is not outwardly discussed, it is apparent in every aspect of Elordi’s performance. When fourteen-year-old Priscilla begs her mother to let her keep seeing twenty-four-year-old Elvis, she says “Mom, he needs me!”. Oh honey. For the first sixty percent of run time, her naivety is painful. But of course Coppola is famously brilliant at capturing the totality of the complex human experience. Elordi expertly portrays the tenderness that Elvis had for Priscilla and the societal and emotional constraints that led him to suffocate the only thing he truly loved. When the film ends, you have no doubt that the two loved each other very deeply. Coppola doesn’t buy into the hero/villain dichotomy in the film (or ever) and sensitively navigates the murky waters of love and abuse. This is why, I’m sure, the real Priscilla Presley trusted her with her story and acted as executive producer of the film. 

Of course, I must dedicate some time to discuss the production itself because it was truly deserving of an Oscar.. In an interview with the Hollywood reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/priscilla-film-priscilla-presley-sofia-coppola-movie-elvis-1235572034/) Coppola said she wanted Graceland to seem like ‘a wedding cake’, and with the help of production designer Tamara Deverell, the effect is phenomenal. The film is almost in conversation with nineteenth-century British romantics, full of scenes that are decadent and youthful yet horrifyingly transient and in the process of decay. You can almost smell the cloying sweetness of Graceland, where windows are never opened and strangers (meaning anyone Priscilla might befriend) are not allowed to enter. Elvis’s bedroom is a triumph because it is the only thing that does not change at all during the film. In the ten years that Priscilla lived in Graceland, the bed she slept in was never really her own. The room is rotting in its stasis, nearly always drowned in darkness, complete with black leather and a leopard statue – almost the total opposite, we find out at the end of the film, of what Priscilla would choose for herself. Her home in Los Angeles is full of light and fresh air, her friends eat in her slightly overgrown garden, she has ditched her too-big-for-her stilettos in favour of jeans and a comfortable shirt. Instead of deathly pale and doll-like, she is tan and freckled. And as she drives out of the gates of Graceland for the last time, to the tune of Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’, once again we are reminded of ourselves or of women we know who have survived unhealthy relationships; we see ourselves in her liberation. And we cheer for her and for ourselves.