A Review of Priscilla
Priscilla Beaulieu Presely.
Her biopic, Priscilla, was released in select theaters, giving the public her perspective on her time and relationship with the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. While it seems that most people watching this film would be fans of Elvis, as someone who has never been interested in the world of Elvis or any of the Presleys, I was rather keen on seeing this film. Going in with little prior knowledge, I was surprisingly engrossed while watching.
Inspired by her 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me, Priscilla delves into the complexity of young Priscilla’s life and takes the audience through her journey, starting at the age she first met Elvis in Germany, fourteen years old (Elvis was twenty-four), and the age she divorces him and leaves their estate, twenty-eight years old. Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Sofia Coppola, the film is done in a diary-like fashion, detailing every moment in Priscilla’s life, with all the good and all the bad. And I really mean “all”. Coppola doesn’t miss anything. We see Priscilla being giddy over phone calls from Elvis after he’s left Germany, in romantic bliss at the poolside, and in marriage happiness.
But woven into that, we see Priscilla’s wretched spirit. We see her in anguish and distress whether it be from arguments with Elvis over affairs, him almost forcing her out of their estate, or even him nearly hitting her with a chair. To put it simply, audiences can see all the nuances in Priscilla’s life and her love with Elvis in only an hour and fifty minutes.
However, despite the film’s main premise being Priscilla’s relationship with Elvis, I didn’t walk away from the film thinking much about their relationship. I kept thinking back to her loneliness because of it.
I could almost feel it while watching. The silence when she walked anywhere and the neatness of the furniture in the house like no one lived there made me feel her solitude. And, her routined days were quite dull for a teenage girl. Priscilla is seen spending her days wandering about Graceland (Elvis’ estate), playing with her puppy, and attending high school after she first moved in with Elvis at seventeen. This may seem like a normal routine for a seventeen-year-old girl, but Priscilla was not necessarily a normal girl.
She was swept off her feet by the heartthrob every teenage girl wanted at the time. All she thought about was him. He consumed her mind in her late teens. But, I don’t fault her for that and neither does the film. After all, she was just a young girl.
And, the film beautifully portrays Priscilla as this. It can sometimes be easy to forget how young Priscilla was when she was constantly thrown into circumstances where she had to be “older”. Whether it was dressing maturely, wearing heavier makeup, or even just being around people that were older than her, Priscilla, in a way, was forced to be “older”.
But, there are many small details in the film where we are reminded that Priscilla is still quite young. The most noticeable difference is her and Elvis’ height difference in the film. Playing the couple are actors Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi with Spaeny standing at five-foot-one and Elordi at six-foot-five. This substantial difference visually adds to the dynamic of their relationship. Elvis literally and figuratively towers over Priscilla, making her feel and appear smaller. He also frequently calls her “little one” throughout the film, further emphasizing Priscilla’s age.
Overall, to me, Priscilla told the story of a woman’s growth. By the end of the film, Priscilla is not how she was in the beginning. She’s not a teenager. She’s a woman. A woman who is ready to move on. A woman who knows she needs to let go to find herself. The last moments of the film show Priscilla leaving Graceland, saying goodbye to the only life she’s known for the past ten or so years. With I Will Always Love You playing in the closing scene, I walked out of the theater feeling an immense amount of empathy and compassion for Priscilla Beaulieu Presley.