The film follows Priscilla Presley and her tumultuous relationship with Elvis Presley.
It’s shocking that this movie wasn’t made sooner as this feels like a story perfect for Sofia Coppola. As it talks about many topics prevalent in most of her other work, the one most apparent here is loneliness. Priscilla spends most of the film as an idea rather than an actual person in the eyes of Elvis. This sentiment is reflected even from the opening scenes of the movie in which Priscilla is getting ready. Showing her applying her iconic eyeliner, painting her nails, and doing her hair, all of which are done perfectly. The cinematography during this segment also heightens this idea by never showing her fully. Again exemplifying her as a concept to Elvis. In the beginning of the film Priscilla is still in high school when she is scouted to go to one of Elvis’ secret parties. Elvis and Priscilla hit it off and she is invited to one of his parties almost daily. She begins to fall behind in school due to lack of sleep, so Elvis gives her pills to stay awake. Eventually, she moves away from her family during her senior year and moves in with Elvis. This film does a good job portraying how trapped Priscilla felt, there are scenes in which she says one wrong thing and Elvis flips out. One example of this is him threatening to send her back home only to immediately console her after causing her to cry. Also Priscilla gets a chair thrown at her for merely expressing how she felt about a song Elvis was working on. The film also made sure that throughout its runtime Priscilla was never sure in her relationship with Elvis. Priscilla is constantly seeing stories of rumors of Elvis’ alleged relationships with other women. Also in probably my favorite scene in the entire film is while Elvis has a bunch of fans over at his house he compliments one of said fans perfume, a perfume that Priscilla has been wearing throughout the whole film.
Overall, Priscilla is very well made and perfectly portrays the situation Priscilla found herself in with a lot of care, I’d give Priscilla 5/5. And if I were Priscilla I wouldn’t have let that perfume debacle slide.
