Priscilla

I was so encouraged by the first two acts of 2023's PRISCILLA, a biopic based on Priscilla Presley's memoir Elvis and Me.   Director Sofia Coppola, who also scripted/adapted, carefully details the early years of the courtship between a young girl and a famous singer.  Takes her time, letting scenes flow with the natural awkwardness and hesitancy you would expect between a fourteen year old Army brat and Elvis Presley, who met in Germany while Priscilla's father was stationed there and The King had famously been drafted.  During these early moments we observe but mostly intuit a certain gradual dread forming in this relationship, and everyone around them.  Yet a pervasive love that would survive, punctuated by a final scene that uses a certain Dolly Parton song that serves as strong a coda as I've seen lately. 

As usual, Sofia's song selections are excellent, even as she was denied permission to use any Elvis tunes. 

Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) lives with her folks in West Germany on an Army base in the late 1950s.  She will be immediately smitten with Elvis (Jacob Elordi) when they meet at a party.  So will he, but proceeds with caution, always politely informing her dad (Ari Cohen) of his good intentions.  Elvis returns to America, eventually inviting Priscilla to move to Graceland to live with his father Vernon (Tim Post) and stepmother while she finishes high school.  The relationship blossoms, but red flags emerge.  Elvis seems dependent on sleeping pills.  The press alleges affairs with his co-stars.  He spends long stretches away from home while shooting his silly movies.  He refuses her requests to come visit.  When they are together, he never seems interested in intimacy.   

Regarding the latter, I found it odd that PRISCILLA does not at least glimpse sex between Priscilla and Elvis.  It happened, right? They did have a daughter.  Was it all the medication? What about Elvis' rumored infidelities?  Instead, Coppola gives us a curious sequence where Mr. photographs Mrs. in French maid outfits and the like.  A possible fetish that wasn't explored, and kind of out of place for a movie that is rather modest despite its R-rating.   The film reflects Sofia's sensitive direction, wholly appropriate, but also lends a chilly distance, often muting the emotional impact.  I feel this telling needed more fire. 

Graceland as an immaculate prison of sorts was effectively rendered.  Front to back the film's production design and evocation of time and place is spot on.  Cheers to Tamara Deverell and her team.  Even Philippe Le Sourd's digital photography looks right for the period. 

Spaeny and Elordi approach their roles with a similar reticence.  Not a hint of scenery chewing or ham fat, which this easily could've been.  I felt this was right, quite in line with PRISCILLA's decidedly dreamy and almost trippy vibe, by now Sofia's signature as a filmmaker.   I just wish the third act didn't rush things along.  Where the fallout of years of long separations, drugs, and poor communication inevitably hits.  The climax was strangely abrupt, a missed opportunity.  But the very last scene, with Dolly's song (which Elvis almost covered) is quietly masterful.