'Priscilla' is a bio-pic of Priscilla Presley based on her 1985 memoir 'Elvis and Me'. Adapted and directed by Sofia Coppola, the story fits perfectly into her filmography, as every movie she's made is on some level about the angest of the teenage girl. Priscilla was disconcertingly young when she began her relationship with Elvis, while the film spans from just before their first meeting until she finally walks out on him, it spends most of its run time on those early years.
Elvis seems to have been granted an unusual amount of deference during his late 1950's military service in West Germany. He sent the camps entertainment director out with the apparent instructions to get him a teenage girl. Priscilla Ann Beaulieu, an army brat, was approached at a diner and invited to a party at Sargent Presley's off base home. Priscilla was 14, Elvis a decade older.
The two spent a lot of time together, but shortly after Presley's honorable discharge in 1960, it was radio silence from him for about two years. Contact was reestablished in 1962, Priscilla made a brief visit to Graceland and a short time later moved in with the Presley's and finished high school in Memphis. Priscilla's parents are depicted as polite to Elvis, but uncomfortable with the whole situation from the time of their daughters first meeting him, however Priscilla's misery in Germany and various reassurances prompted them to relent to the unusual situation.
Jacob Elordi gives us one of the least showey depictions of Elvis I've ever scene, it helps that almost all of what we see of Elvis here is when he is not performing, we never hear him sing and there are no Elvis songs in the soundtrack. While Elvis is often depicted as manipulated by others, particularly his manager Colonel Tom Parker (who is referred to but never shown on screen), here we see an Elvis who can manipulate. The performance raised for me the question of how much of Elvis's quarks and excesses were the result of the extremely odd life situation he found himself in, and how much was inherent to the man himself. He had a temper, though was seldom violent, and a purity obsession with Priscilla, while they would sleep in the same bed, she was still a virgin on their wedding night, five years after they started living together.
While Jacob Elordi gives us something new in his portrait of Elvis, this is Cailee Spaeny's film. She is the center point, the anchor, a solid presence, it is her story. She is called on to do alot of things and to do them subtly. There are alot of changes over the course of this 14 year relationship, they need to seem natural and they do. The later years are dispatched efficiently, the early ones go at a slow pace, we see the youthful enchantment and the slow disillusionment. Ms. Spaeny is 25, but believable as a middle teen in looks and bearing. Much here is heartbreaking and disturbing, but her performance is honest and largely avoids melodrama.
The movie is about as unostentatious as a story about the Presley's could reasonably be. Sofia Coppola is restrained here, there is not alot of flourish, stylization is as minimal as Graceland will allow. I hesitate to say low key, but kind of low key. Impressive all around, one of the highlights of the movie year. ***1/2
