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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Priscilla’ on Max, Sofia Coppola’s Contemplative Antidote to Elvis Extravaganzaism

By John Serba
Published Feb. 23, 2024, 3:30 p.m. ET

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Priscilla (2023)

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Priscilla Presley

I feel like Sofia Coppola blew it by not casting Bill Murray as Col. Tom Parker for Priscilla (now streaming on Max), but let’s judge the movie for what it is, not for what it isn’t. And what it is, is a Priscilla Presley biopic, executive produced by Priscilla herself and based on her mega-sensational 1985 mega-memoir Elvis and Me. Priscilla arrived a year or so after Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, counterbalancing that big, loud, colorful, borderline-obnoxious thing with a far quieter flip side of that 45, with Cailee Spaeny-as-Priscilla spending a lot of time quietly contemplating her identity and the isolation she feels as the girlfriend and wife of one of the most famous people who ever lived. 

PRISCILLA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: She paints her toes over plush carpet. She pencils in eyeliner and glues on her lashes and shellacs her hair with Aqua Net. This is Priscilla: her face, her adornments, her superficial self. To learn how she gets to this point, we jump back to 1959, a U.S. Air Force base in West Germany, where we see 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu (Spaeny) bored and unfulfilled. Get used to seeing that. Her father is in the military. She misses Texas. Elvis Presley himself is stationed here, too, and lives nearby. Somewhat improbably, she’s invited to one of Elvis’ parties, and her parents (Ari Cohen and Dagmara Dominczyk), absolutely reluctant but surely aware of her deep discontent, allow her to go. She’s a fan of his music, but who isn’t? Elvis (Jacob Elordi of Saltburn and Euphoria) sits next to her, chats a bit, says it’s great to see someone who reminds him of home. Then, to the delight of all his guests, he pulls up to the piano and plays “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” 

Of course, that’s a Jerry Lee Lewis cover. That fact should not be lost on us. Priscilla is petite and you’ll be tempted to call her girlish, but it’s hard to be girlish when you’re still very much in fact a girl. Now Elvis wants to take her out on dates. He says the right things to her parents and seems sincere, so they go to the movies, after which he gives her an upper, in case she feels sleepy in school. But he has to go back to the States, and now all she has is his military jacket, a watch he gave her for Christmas, gossip rags detailing his romantic affairs with movie stars and a promise. A promise that goes unfulfilled for two years before Elvis finally calls her, apologetic and earnest and charming. He dictates that she’ll visit him at Graceland, and he and his people make all the arrangements for temporary guardianship and all that, since she’s still a couple years from being an adult. 

Graceland is run by Elvis’ father and grandmother, and constantly overrun with his entourage of party pals. Priscilla arrives and she and Elvis retire to his bedroom, where he’s gentlemanly and respectful and doesn’t succumb to any desires, and then he gives her a downer and she sleeps for two days. When she awakens, they visit Vegas and take pills and gamble and when she returns to the base in Germany, she looks… disheveled. The next time she visits will be permanent, with Elvis’ promise that he’ll put her in a good Catholic school so she can finish her diploma. When she arrives Elvis isn’t there. He’s in L.A. shooting a movie. He bought her a poodle for company, though. 

Priscilla is so young and small, dwarfed by the Graceland sprawl. She looks out of place in the empty house, until Elvis arrives, and then she looks out of place in the house that’s overrun with his cadre of buddies. She suggests she could get a job at a boutique but he says no. He takes her shopping and when she emerges from the dressing room with a new outfit, Elvis and all his buddies share their compliments and critiques. He buys her a pistol, and she shoots it out in the backyard with Elvis and all his buddies. They carry on all night as she tries to do her homework, and often when she gets home from school, Elvis is still sleeping. When they’re alone together in his bedroom, they have photo shoots and pillow fights and Elvis is sweet and funny but sometimes has violent outbursts. And they still haven’t had sex. He’s waiting until they’re married. 

Priscilla
Photo: Everett Collection

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Priscilla isn’t the self-aware Audacious Art that Pablo Larrain’s Jackie and Spencer are, but Coppola’s film is a similarly offbeat biopic; all three films are about the quiet interior lives of women who attained their own fame while being adjacent to staggering mega-fame.

Performance Worth Watching: Outside of Spaeny, the only performance of note is Elordi’s show-us-the-man-and-not-the-icon depiction of Elvis. So all eyes are on her, playing Priscilla as a woman too young to be truly aware of herself and her world. It’s soulful, understated work.

Memorable Dialogue: Elvis get a little touchy and competitive when a friend asks about his jukebox selections: “Don’t tell me to play the goddamn Beatles in my house. We’re in America, swear to god.”

Sex and Skin: None beyond that slightly kinky photo shoot.

Priscilla
Photo: Everett Collection

Our Take: There is no Tom Parker in this movie, or musical performances, or even a single instance of Elvis’ music – we got all that in Luhrmann’s film. Besides, this is Priscilla’s story, and it’s about the very small world Elvis kept her in, like a porcelain doll in a diorama. We get no sweeping shots of Graceland; it’s all tight angles in the interiors, reflecting the psychological claustrophobia she experienced as the woman Elvis loved, fetishized and mostly protected from the insanity of his public life. Elvis is a fascinatingly complex character here. We’re led to suspect he’s keeping her away from tours and concerts and movie shoots so she isn’t scorched by the spotlight, but also so he can have her all to himself, pristine and untouched by the outside world. It also allows him to philander, while denying her the consummation she so very much desires. He’s respectful and sweet, but also abusive and manipulative, all things that this quiet and sheltered teenage girl is susceptible to.

It’s weird to discuss the Elvis character in such depth in the context of a Priscilla biopic, but that seems to be the point. She was so young and impressionable, a near-blank slate in the face of a man who we know was complex and perhaps unknowable, a man rendered unpredictable by his addictions and appetites, a man who had money and fame and adoration but who never had much control over his life and career. So he exacts that control over Priscilla. He doesn’t have sex with her, but with Ann-Margret, Nancy Sinatra, and who knows who else? Almost certainly. 

And so we hold tight to Priscilla and her point-of-view. She’s so often all dressed up with nowhere to go and nothing to do, all but waiting for Elvis to return to her, which could be in an hour or could be in a month. She sits in quiet contemplation, an aching blankness of a person. The moments of stillness are persuasive enough that her quarrels with Elvis erupt like volcanic fire. But the key question we should direct at Priscilla is, knowing Coppola’s fascination with aesthetic and style, and the film’s tendency to flirt with being a nostalgic fashion show-slash-costume drama, do we ever sense something deeper in the character, in Spaeny’s performance? Eventually, yes, even if we yearn for a touch more substance in the traditional sense, something that might evoke feelings more specific than general concern for a young woman’s emotional well-being. That may not be Coppola’s ultimate goal, though – there’s a moment deep in the movie when Priscilla goes into labor, and as Elvis and his handlers rush to get ready for the hospital trip, she pauses to put on her false eyelashes. Appearances must be maintained when you belong to pop royalty. But there’s a point where that simply reflects a deep royal pain.

Our Call: Priscilla is an engaging and moody memoir-biopic that keeps its focus singular, and doesn’t try to do too much. And true to Coppola’s signature form, it’s an engrossing watch with a score and soundtrack that remains evocative because it doesn’t feature the “King”’s music. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.