Review: Exquisite 'Priscilla' Captures a Fairy Tale's Unraveling

Many teens (and adults) have crushes on celebrities. But what's it like to fall in love with and live with a superstar? Evocative and moody, Sofia Coppola's "Priscilla" is an exquisite film about Priscilla Presley and her life with Elvis Presley. Featuring fantastic performances and stunning visuals, it feels like a beautiful cotton candy confection with a bitter core, as it captures a young woman's fairy-tale fantasy unraveling as reality seeps in.

Written and directed by Coppola, "Priscilla" stars Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi. Based on the memoir "Elvis and Me" by Priscilla Presley (who's also a producer on the film) and Sandra Harmon, it premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival.

An excellent filmmaker, Sofia Coppola beautifully captures in her films the elusive experience of being a teen girl (albeit rich, straight, and white) – as in "The Virgin Suicides" and the superb, yet unnderrated, "Marie Antoinette" – and ephemeral feelings of jubilance, yearning, pain, and desire.

With her keen eye for aesthetics and ambiance, Coppola's films often whip up an effervescent, frothy cocktail of femininity. "Priscilla" opens with Priscilla's toes sinking into a plush pink carpet. We see images of stereotypical femininity throughout: Priscilla's whimsical pink bedroom, closeups of her dramatic black cat-eye eyeliner. Through stunning production design by Tamara Deverell and Stacey Battat's lavish costume design, this motif entices while simultaneously exploring gender and reifying Priscilla's youth.

"Priscilla" exists as a hybrid between traditional biopics and unconventional, vivid mood pieces of captured feeling, like Pablo Larraín's "Spencer" and "Jackie."

Teenaged Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) meets Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) when he's already famous. He's about to be deployed in the Army, and they meet at a German Army base where her family is stationed. A friend of Elvis approaches Priscilla in a diner and asks her to attend a party. She has a crush on the music icon, drawn to his charisma and gentleness.

Priscilla's parents are wary and cautious, wanting her to focus on school and suspicious of a much older man. But they acquiesce as Elvis, or one of his friends, repeatedly convince them to let Priscilla see him. It obliquely hints at control, which we see more overtly later in the film. Priscilla eventually moves to Memphis and lives with Elvis' father while attending an all-girls Catholic high school. They eventually get married and live in Graceland.

Cailee Spaeny (good in "The Craft: Legacy," "Mare of Easttown," and "How It Ends") is excellent as she charms, yet feels grounded and centered in a performance where she's thoughtful, sweet, and deferential, being eager to please Elvis. Yet, we occasionally see moments of tempestuous frustration spill out, like when she hurls a vase in an argument due to Elvis' infidelity. It's a subdued, understated performance with a lot of interiority going on, her eyes and body language revealing her emotions.

Jacob Elordi exudes a raw charisma, yet remains restrained in his performance, revealing a surprisingly shy sensitivity in his portrayal of Elvis. His performance diverges from Austin Butler's lauded bravura role in Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis." Spaeny and Elordi share chemistry, making their relationship feel believable.

With gossamer cinematography by Phillipe Le Sourd, Priscilla seems to float through the film, feeling like a hazy dream propelled by an intoxicating allure of fame and devotion. Yet as the film progresses, she feels like a specter haunting an empty mansion, standing outside her life and herself. In many ways, "Priscilla" exists as a companion piece to "Marie Antoinette." Both Coppola films follow famous young women constricted and confined in gilded cages.

Priscilla is isolated, often existing in solitude while Elvis tours or goes to Hollywood for his acting career. She perpetually orbits Elvis. After moving out of her parents' home, we never see her with friends of her own, only with Elvis' friends and family. Priscilla often feels like a doll, as Elvis tells her what to wear as he watches her model dresses, instructing her to don shades of blue (no "distracting" prints), dye her hair darker, and to wear bolder cosmetics. He casually gives her the same drugs he takes. As time goes on, he becomes more controlling.

Die-hard fans of Elvis may recoil at this depiction, while others may acknowledge that it's a filmmaker's interpretation of a true story. Sofia Coppola said she wants audiences to draw their own conclusions about Elvis and his behavior; she's not necessarily condemning him, but rather showing Priscilla's experience. From my vantage, it's hard not to condemn his actions in "Priscilla." Beyond the repulsion of getting into a relationship with a teenager while he's an adult, it's a deft depiction of insidious abuse.

"Priscilla" captivates with its decadently lush visuals, excellent performances, and theme of a girl's lofty fantasy falling in love with a music icon colliding with reality. It's a coming-of-age story of a girl becoming a woman who breaks out of a confining dollhouse and learns to assert herself and stand on her own.

"Priscilla" opens in theaters on Friday, November 3, 2023.