Summary

Sofia Coppola’s latest film, “Priscilla,” beautifully explores the life of Priscilla Presley, highlighting her journey from a young girl living with her family in Germany to a woman who finds her own identity. Cailee Spaeny delivers a stunning performance as young Priscilla, capturing her naivety and steely curiosity, while Jacob Elordi’s portrayal of Elvis is seductive yet quietly sinister, revealing his need for control in both his private and public life. The film portrays the power imbalances, manipulation, and abuse in Priscilla’s relationship with Elvis, but ultimately celebrates her resilience and refusal to be defined solely by her connection to the legendary performer. “Priscilla” is a story of self-discovery and a new beginning for a woman who lived in Elvis’ shadow.

Just last year, the King of Rock and Roll received a biopic bursting with life, but as Elvis took awards season by storm, another movie featuring the prolific music artist was in production. Sofia Coppola’s follow-up to 2020’s On the Rocks adapts Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, focusing on the woman behind the icon, who became one in her own right. Priscilla is another masterwork from Coppola, a study of a woman in a gilded cage and her journey to freedom with two central performances that will go down as some of the best in Coppola’s entire filmography.

Priscilla is sure to garner comparisons to Elvis, but, within her own body of work, many will look to Marie Antoinette as a sort of companion piece to her elegantly subdued biopic. The film begins when Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) is still in high school, studying in Germany while living with her family. She is just 14 when she meets Elvis (Jacob Elordi), who is 24 at the time and serving in the military. Priscilla is quickly swept up into Elvis’s orbit, brought to his rented German home by friends where she is thrust into an unfamiliar yet enticing world. Spaeny plays young Priscilla with a delicate naïveté that is underscored but steely curiosity. She knows what she wants — or at least, she thinks she does.

Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi in Priscilla. 

None of this would work without Elordi’s slinky performance. Where Austin Butler’s Oscar-nominated turn as Elvis was bombastic and borderline camp (and has extended beyond filming as Butler continued to use the accent in public appearances), Elordi’s Elvis is seductive and quietly sinister. He’s bashful when around Priscilla, but there are flashes of something darker that complicates his relationship with Priscilla and gives away his need for control, both in Elvis’ private and public life. It seems Elordi has learned from the more overt evil of his Euphoria character Nate Jacobs, making way for something much more subtle but just as unsettling. Watching Priscilla react and adapt to this is part of what makes her journey in the film all the more intriguing.

It’s an elusive journey, but Spaeny gives it her all. When she arrives at Graceland, Coppola’s film becomes almost claustrophobic, the shots emphasizing the walls that surround her. Elvis’ bedroom is dark, practically a cave, and the couple spend plenty of time there. As Elvis disappears for months at a time, though, Graceland begins to feel more like a prison than a castle. This seems to be where the companionship with Marie Antoinette is most apparent — two young women brought to unfamiliar worlds and perched like prizes within their respective palaces. Where Marie refuses to leave, though, Priscilla yearns for the outside world.

Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny in Priscilla. 

Spaeny is a revelation and with the help of the film’s hair and makeup team, Priscilla’s growth from a doe-eyed and amiable young girl to a woman with agency who knows what she needs is apparent in every inch of her performance. As flashes of Elvis reveal a darker side to the legendary performer, Spaeny’s eyes are both fearful and weary before a steely sort of resolve takes over in the film’s final scenes. It’s a star-making turn, one that certainly deserves awards recognition, as does Elordi’s turn as Elvis. Their chemistry is palpable which pays dividends when their inevitable end comes.

Coppola’s idea of freedom is not some brash display of breakage and that’s where she finds the beauty in Priscilla’s story. Despite its display of power imbalances, manipulation, and outright abuse, Priscilla is ultimately a story about a girl coming into her own as a woman, discovering who she is despite the life around her insisting that she is just a replaceable cog in a celebrity machine. Priscilla refuses to be brought down by Elvis’ whims and his eventual toxic behavior, shown briefly towards the end of the film. It’s not about him or his ending, though. In a way, Priscilla doesn’t have an ending at all. It ends with a new beginning for the woman who lived in Elvis’ shadow for so long.

Priscilla releases in nationwide theaters on November 3. The film is 113 minutes long and rated R for drug use and some language.

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