Gliding across the pristine pink carpet Priscilla Presley (Cailee Spaeny) readies herself for the hospital. The young mother, already a picture of perfection, ensures her imagine is nothing short of immaculate. But the initial image of Priscilla is just the facade to a deeply complicated woman whose story was hidden behind the shadow of a rock-and-roll superstar. Until now.
Writer/director Sofia Coppola has tackled public figures (Marie Antoinette) and real-life tales (The Bling Ring) before. With her adaption of Priscilla Presley’s memoir, Coppola brought to life the story of a woman who has long been intertwined with her famous husband. Exploring themes of loneliness, depicting girlhood and womanhood, subverting expectations to reclaim one woman’s truth.
Priscilla Beaulieu meet Elvis (Jacob Elordi) at a party; Priscilla’s father is stationed in Germany where Elvis is serving time in the army. Priscilla is 14 years old, in the ninth grade. Elvis, a megastar waiting to finish his service to return to his career, is 24 years old. It is evident in their first meeting that fame and fortune tilt the scales of power in his favor. Slowly, Elvis not only enchants Priscilla, but begins to charm her parents.
When Elvis returns to his life in America, Priscilla becomes heartsick, hoping to be reunited with the man who has completely altered her world. Elvis convinces Priscilla’s parents to allow their teenage daughter to visit him in Memphis. On this trip, Elvis ends up taking Priscilla to Las Vegas, beginning to control his environment and relationship. Priscilla writes postcards to her parents to be sent while they are in the City of Sin. She soon begins to dress older, join him on the casino floors, and uses drugs to keep up with the rockstar.
After briefly returning to her family in Germany, the Beaulieu’s are convinced to allow Priscilla to move to Graceland under Vernon Presley’s (Tim Post) care. Priscilla finishes high school but not before the seeds are planted for her to become totally dependent upon Elvis. Alone in his mansion, Priscilla spends her days finishing her school work and waiting by the phone for any communication from her love. When he returns home, the Memphis Mafia and all trusted Elvis allies consume every aspect of her life.
It is not all bad. Elvis gifts Priscilla a new car, new clothes, a puppy, anything that her heart desires. Elvis also treats Priscilla as a confidant. The ways in which Elvis dotes on Priscilla, makes the ways he controls her that much more evident. Audiences watch her strive to define her life, but she is continually sucked into Elvis’s orbit.
More than 45 years after Elvis’s death, society has begun to dissect the origins of his love story with Priscilla. We no longer can bat away the power dynamics due to the differences in age, wealth, social status, and physique. Coppola confronts the dynamics at play. Examining Priscilla’s life through Priscilla’s own lens, Coppola subverts expectations by leaning into her truth, rather than using Elvis, his fame and megastardom as a crutch to propel the story.
Coppola takes the route of least expected but, by doing so, it feels right, natural. Moreover, Coppola was unable to receive the rights to Elvis Presley’s discography. It ends up aiding the film. Without Priscilla’s story being soundtracked to Elvis’s music, we, for the first time, get to witness her truth in unobstructed view. Coppola has always used music as part of her filmmaking. From “Crimson and Clover” to “Baby, I Love You,” the music perfectly captures the era.
Importantly, the music aids in one of Coppola’s most impactful endings. At the end of the film, we see Priscilla – now looking more natural in her hair, make-up, and clothing choices – visit Elvis to tell him their marriage is over. Elvis, in full Vegas epoch, asks, “Have I lost you to another man?” Responding, Priscilla says, “You’re losing me to a life of my own.” In reclaiming her life, she begins to find herself as a woman in her early 30s.
The last audiences see of Priscilla is her packing her final belongings from Graceland and leaving the only home she has known for a decade. Meanwhile, Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” plays as Priscilla makes her way into her new life. The song choice is particularly poignant. Parton wrote the song for her one-time musical partner and mentor Porter Wagoner. When Parton decided to go solo and begin her own music career, she wrote “I Will Always Love You” as sort of a break-up song between her and this incredibly important man in her life. The song comes from a place of love and deep admiration despite the ending of a relationship. The song mirrors so much of the way Priscilla continues to view her relationship with Elvis.
While more modern and objective understanding of their relationship has been brought into the conversation, Priscilla’s own views of her relationship remain generally positive. Coppola knew how to balance that new framing of the Presley relationship while retaining Priscilla’s complex truth of her life.
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