“It’s very difficult to sit and watch a film about you, about your life, about your love,” Priscilla Presley recently told Variety Magazine, her eyes welling up with tears. “Sofia did an amazing job. She did her homework, we spoke a couple of times and I really put everything out for her that I could.”
There likely could not be a more ringing endorsement for Sofia Coppola’s new movie “Priscilla”. Based on “Elvis and Me”, Priscilla’s 1985 memoir of the marriage, the film deftly handles the creepy, controlling and ultimately lonely relationship Priscilla suffered behind the towering walls of Graceland.
As she showed us in “Lost In Translation”, Coppola is a master of silence and imbues the spaces in her movies with an oppressive meaning. All these tricks come to the fore in “Priscilla” where the long stretches of boredom, the bizarre life shut away from Evis’ spotlight and the normality of what was a very abnormal situation, all seem astoundingly real.
Coppla’s touch is deft, but assured, as she guides us from Priscilla’s early days as a fifteen year old shutaway in Graceland to the adult transformation and new baby, Lisa-Marie, that must, eventually and inevitably come. The film offers a startling counterpoint to the garish outsider’s view of Baz Luhrman’s “Elvis” and starkly reveals another side to the megastar.
Touchingly, Coppola does not allow the gurning, hip-swinging king to take over the film, asking instead for a restrained performance from Jacob Elordi. It, therefore, remains very firmly centred on Priscilla, played by Cailee Spaeny, and her experiences, and it’s here where it truly shines. This film is a respectful, touching, and perfectly relatable portrait of Priscilla the person, and how she lived, and survived in the gilded cage of Elvis’ making.
This is a film that’s well worth seeing, especially, if you have already seen Luhrman’s other side.
