In the new A24 film, Priscilla Presley, former wife of Elvis Presley, is depicted from her teen years to the end of her marriage.
By Fiona Hagan
Cailee Speany as Priscilla Presley. Photo Credit: A24
Priscilla, directed by Sofia Coppola, follows the former wife of the “King of Rock and Roll,” Elvis Presley, through the beginning of her relationship with him up until their separation. The film recounts the unsavory details of Elvis’s private life from Priscilla’s perspective, namely Elvis’s romantic relationship with her beginning when she was a child. Priscilla was only 14 years old when Elvis was 24. Priscilla is played by the enchanting Cailee Spaeny, with Jacob Elordi playing a simultaneously distant and volatile Elvis. The film shows the effects fame and Presley himself had on her girlhood and as she grew older, her womanhood. Both actors sink deeply into their roles, with Elordi taking a backseat to Spaeny’s wistful and repressed Priscilla.
The story begins in 1959, on a U.S. Army Base in Germany, a location that is somewhat unexpected to those unfamiliar with the origins of the Presley’s relationship. Priscilla, sitting alone in a cafe, is approached by a friend of Elvis who invites her to one of his parties. He immediately takes notice of her, acting shocked after finding out she is a freshman in high school. After Elvis invites Priscilla up to his bedroom, viewers are struck with an eerie sense that a romantic relationship will likely begin between the stars now, while Priscilla is a child of 14. The two share kisses on various dates, leaving the audience with palpable nausea and anxiety.
Spaeny embodies a wide eyed young girl starstruck by Elvis Presley’s fame just as well as a 27 year old mother crumbling under the pressure of a husband whose love for her is dwindling. Her performance shines the most once Priscilla arrives in Graceland, Elvis’s famed Tennessee home. While still attending her Catholic high school, Priscilla moves into his home. She exists both as an adult, the companion of one of the most famous men in the world, and child, bribing classmates for test answers with the promise of attending one of Elvis’s parties. Cailee Spaney is the clear standout of the film. She perfectly encapsulates the loneliness of being a young woman placed in an environment much larger than herself– a feature that Sofia Copolla so often focuses upon in her films. Spaeny tactfully portrays Priscilla as gradually shedding her girlishness and juvenescence, descending into a world of obligation with no support system. Priscilla returns home to Graceland one day, and sits in the front yard to play with her puppy that Elvis gifted her. She is immediately chided by a member of Elvis’s staff that playing in the yard where Elvis fans wait outside the gates is inappropriate, cementing that she is no longer allowed to live out the rest of her childhood with any sense of normalcy.
Priscilla’s entire identity lies in her husband’s desires and needs. We see him create her iconic style, stating to her and her stylists that she will darken her hair and begin wearing more makeup because that is what he thinks is best. She has no emotional or physical identity outside of his preferences. Elvis is also shown as being physically violent, throwing chairs and suitcases when she defies the standards he has created. We see the relationship between the Presleys grow more tumultuous after Priscilla gives birth to their daughter Lisa Marie. Elvis no longer views Priscilla as an innocent girl who exists solely in relation to him: he can no longer fetishize her naivete and girlishness. His initial attraction to Priscilla lies in her doe eyed youth, namely when they meet for the first time and he immediately invites her to his bedroom after learning she is 14. After Priscilla gives birth to Lisa Marie, she has something to live for aside from what Elvis wants for her, and their issues are only exacerbated by this.
She has become a woman, with a child, and Elvis distances himself from her, and the distance only worsens until their inevitable divorce. What follows is a distinctly Sofia Coppola series of montages, with music swelling in the background of Priscilla lying in bed, or teasing her trademark 1960’s voluminous hairstyle.
In some ways, Sofia Coppola’s dreamy style full of prolonged shots with minimal dialogue helps to enhance the audience’s perception of a young Priscilla’s loneliness and disconnect from the world bustling around her. In others, the audience is left wanting more. The film rarely attempts to make clear the complexities of Priscilla’s emotions during the more turbulent stages of her relationship with Presley, and she is kept at a frustrating distance. Priscilla lies at a strange crossroads between existing solely within the perspective of its main character, and barely investigating her innermost thoughts at all. Priscilla’s thoughts and feelings are left largely up for interpretation. This both engages the audience through encouraging them to read into smaller details, and muddies the overall meaning of the film through creating a main character whose motivations are unclear.
While she had little control over many aspects of her personal and private life, Priscilla is not portrayed as entirely complacent in her own story. Infidelity is implied in both directions in the film. Priscilla pours over tabloids claiming that Elvis is having affairs with his costars, but in the last 20 minutes of the film, it is hinted at through lingering shots of Priscilla and her karate coach that she had an affair with him during the last months of her already dying marriage. These small implications paint a slightly more in depth picture of Priscilla as she grows into her womanhood, and her attempts to regain any semblance of an identity outside of her superstar husband.
The film ends as it began, with Priscilla on her own. Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” reverberates behind Priscilla driving away from Graceland down an empty street, towards a life of independence. Left with many unanswered questions, the film concludes with the audience still pining for more of a genuine understanding of who Priscilla truly is.