Priscilla (2023)

August 12, 2024 9:46 AM

[TRAILER] When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny, Civil War) meets Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi, Saltburn) at a party, the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a vulnerable best friend. Through Priscilla’s eyes, Sofia Coppola tells the unseen side of a great American myth in Elvis and Priscilla's long courtship and turbulent marriage, from a German army base to his dream-world estate at Graceland.

Written and directed by Sofia Coppola. Based on Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley, Sandra Harmon. Produced by Sofia Coppola, Youree Henley, Lorenzo Mieli for American Zoetrope/The Apartment Pictures/A24. Cinematography by Philippe Le Sourd. Edited by Sarah Flack. Music by Phoenix (score), Sons of Raphael (original music).

84% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Currently streaming in the US on Max. JustWatch listing.

posted by DirtyOldTown (7 comments total)

Coppola threads a really tight needle here, honoring Priscilla Presley's perspective while, without saying the word, making it clear that this is a story of grooming and toxicity.

The film's shortcomings have more to do with the familiar bones of the source material that are still plain beneath the trappings of wealth, fame, and the world's then most famous human being: underneath it all, he sucks, and she's happier and better off when she leaves him, even if, given the allure of Elvis, her love for their daughter, and the generation she was part of, Priscilla might never describe the situation in the way that we would today.

It's not a great movie and it's going to feel pretty familiar in many spots, but pulling this off so that we can recognize it as a grooming story while still working from source material and under the eye of the subject herself who does not necessarily see it that way... well, that's pretty impressive.

Good work from just about everyone involved, especially the production designers who built their own Graceland in Canada to film in.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:50 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]

I agree that it's not a great movie, but I think it's a very good one.

Better than Blonde, which hits some of the same notes and has a great performance from Ana de Armas, but isn't nearly as well-directed.

A whole lot better than Elvis, because of course those are the two movies that come to mind to compare it to.
posted by box at 10:12 AM on August 12 [2 favorites]

I thought Elordi was a better situational/conversational Elvis than Austin Butler (though Butler was a better performance Elvis.)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:36 AM on August 12

3.5 stars for me, too, so definitely good.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:41 AM on August 12

Better than Blonde, which hits some of the same notes and has a great performance from Ana de Armas, but isn't nearly as well-directed.

We DNFed Blonde after about 15 minutes.
posted by signal at 12:32 PM on August 12 [3 favorites]

Cailee Spaeny is great here and I think Sofia Coppola gave her Priscilla a lot of agency (even when everyone in her life failed her).

But as good as this movie is (in that it's gorgeous to look at and well directed), I never got the sense of why we were supposed to care about Priscilla in her own right. She was defined by her relationship to Elvis. And yes, maybe that was some of the point, but I never got a full sense of who she was without him.

But Coppola tends to direct movies that are just about a "girl" -- and I mean that with love. I just don't know if this dug too deep.
posted by edencosmic at 6:08 PM on August 12

The pacing was very frustrating. Really brief scenes fading into other brief scenes which felt neither fully a mood nor plot.
posted by armacy at 9:18 AM on August 15