Director: Sofia Coppola (Italy, USA). Year of Release: 2023
1959. A US-American bar in Germany, largely used by soldiers. A girl sits with her homework on the bar In front of her. Apparently she’s 14, but she looks even younger. A soldier approaches her, telling her that he’s seen her at the bar before. But apparently he’s not trying to pick her up – if it means anything, he tells her early on that he’s married. But he’d like to invite her to a party being held by one of his friends. That friend is called Elvis Presley.
At the party we get a sense of Elvis’s dynamic charm. When asks, he goes to the piano and does a mean Jerry Lee Lewis impersonation. But he also says that he’s lonely. The women he meets in Germany are all foreign. His mother has just died, and but he says that he trusts Priscilla. Nowadays, we’d call this sort of behaviour grooming. Priscilla is overwhelmed – this is Elvis after all. Who wouldn’t make sacrifices to spend some time with him?
Time passes, as is shown by moving calendars, posters showing Elvis’s films and birthday cards for Priscilla’s 16th birthday. Elvis’s military service ends, and he returns to the States. Priscilla continues at school reading magazine reports on his affairs, while she waits for him to ring. Eventually Elvis ships her out to Graceland and enrols her in a Catholic school. We’re approaching the time when we need to seriously confront what is exactly happening between the singer and his child guest.
What keeps coming back to you is just how weird and creepy this relationship is. Not just because of the proximity of a man in his mid-20s to a schoolgirl, but also in its sexlessness. Elvis repeatedly invites Priscilla up to his room, and eventually to share his bed, but when she decides to act on her sexual frustration – she’s alone with Elvis after all – he fends her off. All this while newspapers are gleefully reporting his affairs with the actresses he’s working with.
Priscilla is a trophy for Elvis, who appears to need a chaste relationship with a young girl who is merely there to worship him. I say “need”, but that’s a weasel phrase like “sex addiction”. Elvis is not compelled to treat Priscilla like shit. He does it because he knows he can, sometimes saying he’s following orders from an offscreen Colenol. He tells us what to wear and how to behave. He takes her out to buy clothes, but then only agrees to buy the dresses that appeal to him.
If Priscilla weren’t young enough already, Elvis infantilises her, repeatedly calling her his baby. He denies her any agency. There is no chance that she will ever find equality in this relationship. Even when she is playing on the front lawn with the puppy Elvis bought her, she is urged indoors, away from the throng of fans outside the gates. Elvis gives her uppers and downers, ostensibly to help her through school, but you can’t avoid the element of control.
Even after marriage and Priscilla’s pregnancy, Elvis sets her on a virginal pedestal. He won’t have sex with her long after she’s given birth, saying “I just don’t want to hurt you, baby.” But on occasions, the mask of the courteous Southern Boy slips. When she offers a mildly different opinion, he throws a chair at her. In a Vegas hotel room, he throws her onto the bed, and nearly rapes her, saying “This is how a real man makes love to his woman.”
I am not the greatest fan of director Sofia Coppola, and generally regard her as a NEPO baby par excellence, who insists on writing and film about an uninteresting privileged clique that only people like her ever meet. I’m not sure that she is doing anything different here, but at least we get to see how Priscilla is barely able to cope with the sort of exclusive atmosphere which is a second home for Coppola and her mates. The first half of the film, at least, is revealing and fascinating.
But then, after a while, the film starts to drag. Elvis goes on tour and leaves Priscilla on her own at home, feeling lonely. When he is at home, he prefers to hang out with his entourage. This is all very sad, but it’s no different to countless other scenes which preceded it. The point has been made. Although the film covers 15 years or so, we don’t see any palpable change in Priscilla’s behaviour. We learn nothing from watching the same scenes over and over again.
The result is that, although Priscilla’s situation gradually changes – at first she is entirely isolated at Graceland, where the Presley family won’t allow even her schoolfriends come to visit, but by the end she has accumulated a group of female friends – we don’t witness any character development in her- She remains the same victim until – Spoiler Alert about something which happened 50 years ago – she ups and leaves. We know why, but don’t see what made her make that move then.
I have a couple of more minor complaints. There is a prolonged section where Elvis turns to Eastern mysticism which does little to push the plot forward. And in the trailer, Jacob Elordi looks nothing like Elvis. In the film there are more similarities, but he always looks way too tall. In real life, Elvis was under six feet tall. In the film he towers over Priscilla, which may make an important dramatic point, but it also keeps you thinking: “that’s not Elvis”.
The soundtrack, which is full of anachronistic tunes, has been described by some critics as “bold”, whereas I’d prefer to call it “lazy”. Why would a film about one of the greatest singer ever largely refuse to include his own songs? One argument would be parsimony – it just costs too much to play Elvis these day, but this is not a cheap film, Another would say that this is a film about Priscilla, we needn’t bring Elvis into this, although he clearly features in most scenes.
Let’s just say that a more Elvis-heavy soundtrack would have made more sense with me, but the film doesn’t swim or sink with that. Given that the film largely portrays Elvis as being a bit of an inconsiderate bastard, I sort of understand the editorial decision to omit his songs, even if I don’t really agree with it. Listening to the vaguely contemporary songs as we watch Elvis and Priscilla act out their destiny, all just feels a little odd.
In this way, it reflects the film. Much better than I was expecting to start with, but something which by the end has outstayed its welcome.
CinePhil 