Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla is the anti-Elvis

Sofia Coppola’s delicate touch is evident in her film. Priscilla, the A24 biopic of Priscilla Presley (née Beaulieu), who married Elvis Presley in 1967 and separated from him six years later. Its final act is dragged down by a disjointed structure that focuses more on tracing the real-life chronology of events than focusing on character drama and its emotional heart. But until that point, it’s kept afloat by Coppola’s gentle conception of Priscilla’s story, which she unfurls through a pair of brilliant, alluring performances.

Priscilla feels like it’s descended from Coppola’s 2006 historical drama Marie AntoinetteThe French Queen is captured as a doll inside an ivory tower in. A similar approach in Priscilla The title character is framed in fragility as if Elvis could shatter her any minute.

It plays like a rebuff of Baz Luhrmann’s Oscar-nominated 2022 biopic Elvis, in which the duo’s marriage is framed solely around Elvis’ experience, and the isolating effects of his growing fame. Their relationship weaves in and out of the tale of Elvis’ career, but without exposing how Priscilla was isolated from the world as well. Elvis also entirely glosses over a key detail that might’ve further complicated the icon’s historic legacy: When the couple first met in 1959, the King of Rock ’n’ Roll was 24 years old, and his eventual queen was all of 14.

Photo: Sabrina Lantos/A24

Coppola’s movie has no such qualms about addressing their age difference. It’s based on Priscilla’s 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, and though Priscilla says she greatly enjoyed Luhrmann’s movie, Coppola’s version plays like a historical course correction in its artistic framing of events. She makes few alterations to Priscilla’s recollection of events, but each filmmaking decision is pointed, as if to not only expand on the limitations of Luhrmann’s Elvis, but to reframe Elvis Presley’s image in the public consciousness via an intimate look at his most important romantic relationship.

Two films that take two completely different views on reality. Luhrmann’s Elvis is a zany acid trip bordering on camp, with Austin Butler portraying Elvis by throwing himself headfirst into the King’s iconic physicality. PriscillaAnnounced just after Elvis’ release, had been in the works for much longer, but it can’t help but exist in conversation with Luhrmann’s film, as it zeroes in on the gaps between Luhrmann’s wild, eclectic montages to present a more methodical character drama. That starts with Coppola’s pick to play Elvis: Jacob Elordi, as a more soft-spoken yet emotionally unpredictable version of the man, which fits her more naturalistic drama, just as Butler was a perfect fit for Luhrmann’s operatic vision.

But Coppola’s secret weapon is Cailee Spaeny, who she cast as Priscilla on the advice of Marie Antoinette star Kirsten Dunst. Spaeny, at 5’1″, is dwarfed in all scenes by Elordi who stands 6’5″ tall. Coppola takes advantage of the height gap, highlighting the difference in experience and age between Elvis and Priscilla. Priscilla seems enamored by Elvis, and Elvis has a tenderness about him, but their differing sizes and the camera’s framing urges viewers to consider the dynamics Priscilla might not see, or that Elvis chooses to ignore.

Photo: Sabrina Lantos/A24

The costume design is also a key factor in Priscilla’s trajectory, and it works in tandem with Spaeny’s performance. The film’s opening images are of a heavily made-up Priscilla — the way she eventually appeared to the rest of the world — in a scene that exists as if it’s outside of time, and solely within the public imagination. Coppola establishes that this iconography is also a part of a larger story when she shows viewers Priscilla, a 14-year old girl, at the U.S. base in Germany where her dad works, and near to where she first meets Elvis. Seated at a diner counter and reading a heavy high school textbook, she has the prim demeanor and posture of someone young and sheltered, a teen who hasn’t yet learned to rebel or chase after what she wants.

Spaeny captures this emotional immaturity in an astonishing physicality. As a stranger in uniform approaches her to strike up a conversation, towering over her the way Elvis does in the rest of the movie, silent alarm bells go off, as we’re urged to wonder why this adult man is speaking to a 14-year-old girl seated all by herself.

It turns out this man is one of Elvis’ friends, inviting Priscilla to come meet the King at a party at his private residence. It’s a glamorous, dreamlike proposition, but the subtle discomfort in Spaeny’s performance suggests viewers should be on edge, even though nothing overtly sinister comes of their conversation. Is this man some sort of predatory envoy, who knows Elvis “likes ’em young”? Or are his numerous attempts to convince Priscilla’s parents to let her attend Elvis’ party merely the graciousness of a fellow fan who recognizes that Priscilla is lonely?

Elvis was right, perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle. Elordi’s portrayal veers between knowing and conflicted about their difference in age and sexual experience. But the film doesn’t solve the mystery of whether his dilemmas are a performance for Priscilla. Coppola chooses to portray the uncertainty Priscilla might have experienced when Elvis was hot or cold with her.

Photo: Sabrina Lantos/A24

Spaeny’s embodiment of this uncertainty is marvelous. The film eventually loses its dramatic momentum, veering into vignettes and flashes from the duo’s later life. Coppola strings these together with an objective in mind, laying the path for the couple’s separation, but without laying out character trajectories or capturing the dilemmas behind their major decisions.

Even so, Spaeny’s performance is a vital dramatic linchpin. She achieves a delicate balance between desire, trepidation and fear. In Coppola’s wide shots of the couple in bed, Spaeny puts on a clinic of performance. She has a captivating gaze, almost as if her sexual and romantic gestures are based on the way she is taught or imagines the adult world. Her hesitant body-language creates tension at every intimate moment. Spaeny’s hands and feet serve a specific emotional purpose. From nervous fidgeting, to playful teasing.

It’s a good thing that you asked. Luhrmann’s Elvis, Olivia DeJonge does a commendable job as Priscilla, but the script just asks her to play a stock Hollywood biopic type, the wife whose alternating doting and rejection helps illustrate the watermarks of a male genius’ career. In Priscilla, the duo’s relationship takes center stage instead, affording them equal dramatic weight even when they’re apart, and letting Spaeny and Elordi create living, breathing visions of these American icons in private moments behind the scenes.

These films have different purposes. ElvisIt is arguably more energetic and confident in fulfilling its formal duties. However, with PriscillaCoppola has crafted a crucial historical counter-narrative that challenges the reverence and canonization of Hollywood icons. She does this not by demolishing Elvis’ iconography, but by zeroing in on its details, revealing the flaws in the many statues built in his name by training her camera on the inner life of his most vital counterpart. In the realm of mainstream fiction, Priscilla Presley seldom received her due — until now.

PriscillaOn Nov. 3, the film will be released in theaters across America.