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Wrong notes keep ‘Priscilla’ from being a hit
Based on the 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me” by Priscilla Presley, Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” is a big cup of weak tea, especially measured against Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 effort “Elvis” with the Oscar-nominated, star-making turn by Austin Butler in the lead role. “Priscilla” is the minimalist Elvis-centric film compared with Luhrmann’s maximalist entry.
“Priscilla” gives us the visually mismatched Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny as its doomed lovers. He’s 6’5”; she’s 5’1.” The height difference makes Elordi’s Elvis seem like the villainous giant in this fairy tale in more ways than one. It starts in West Germany in 1959, where 24-year-old Elvis is in the Air Force and 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu meet. Elvis invokes the tendency of rock stars of that period taking up with underage girls by playing rival Jerry Lee Lewis’s rendition of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” on a piano.
Cue Frankie Avalon’s “Venus,” and, yes, “please send a little girl for me to thrill.” Spaeny’s Priscilla notably has no friends her age at an age when friends mean everything. I understand than she has been uprooted from Texas to West Germany. But I find it difficult too believe that she has no one to confide in. Together, Elvis is like this handsome Southern-fried Big Bird while Priscilla is a beautiful little Miss Piggy, standing literally in his long shadow. I have not read the book. But the film demurely suggests that Elvis wants to save sex for when Priscilla is older, presumably because it would have been a crime and easy for him to stall since he has other ways to get it.
This film’s Elvis is a creepy manipulator, who introduces Priscilla to the “uppers” and “downers” of the period. When he isn’t hanging out with his “Memphis Mafia,” Elvis has spread-across-the-scandalsheets supposed liaisons with such film co-stars as Ann-Margret of “Viva Las Vegas” (1964) and Nancy Sinatra of “Speedway” 1968). Does Coppola ever allow us to see superstar Elvis putting his spell on audiences? Not really.
In West Germany, Elvis arrives at the Beaulieu home in a big, beetle-shaped black Cadillac to pick up Priscilla, looking like the Greek god Hades come from up the underworld to kidnap the maiden Persephone in his chariot. Elvis later dreams of studying at the Actors Studio like such new stars as Marlon Brando and James Dean. But all he makes are dopey-fun pop films approved by his manager and Svengali Colonel Tom
Parker, who is notably an unseen presence in this film. We catch a glimpse of the popular, period TV sitcom “The Beverly Hillbillies,” and, yes, here they are in real life.
“Priscilla” is an almost nonverbal work. The screenplay by Sofia Coppola adapted from Sandra Harmon’s 1988 TV movie screenplay and Presley’s book is repetitive to a fault. The words, “I miss you,” are repeated so many times I lost count. Priscilla asks to accompany Elvis to Hollywood. He gives her plenty of reasons why not, leaving her at Graceland with his grandmother (Lynne Griffin) and trusted maid Alberta (Olivia Barrett). Elvis tells Priscilla how to dress and wear her hair. She begins pairing her outfits with matching, purse-sized handguns. The caterpillar-like eyelashes and gigantic, black bouffant arrive. I realize that all the interior scenes are meant to convey that Priscilla is in a psychological and physical prison.
But for crying out loud, please, someone, open a door.
Surely it is an omission to fail to put Elvis on a stage and show us what he could do to an audience. That was the essence of Elvis, not his damaged marriage to Priscilla. Coppola, the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather”), has made several films about young women anxiously dwelling in the shadow of famous and powerful men: “Lost in Translation” (2003), “Marie Antoinette” (2006), “Somewhere” (2010) and now, “Priscilla.” Please, stop.
(“Priscilla” contains profanity and drug use)