With 2022’s critical and box office hit Elvis, which turned Austin Butler into a household name, we got a glossy, sanitized perspective of one of entertainment's most mythic personalities. With Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla we get the whole other side of the story and another tremendous lead performance to boot. With a star-making performance from Cailee Spaeny, at its very best Priscilla is a gorgeously rendered film but without the concluding punch of empowerment you could be longing for. 

 

When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley at a party, the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a vulnerable best friend.

 

If you are an Elvis fan you will be wincing through the entire duration of this film. The defense that it was different times in the 50’s when Priscilla met Presley as a fourteen year old and he was twenty four still doesn’t pass the this-is-really-gross test. The demeaning behavior and belittling that Elvis inflicted on Priscilla throughout their relationship is a constant barrage not only on Priscilla, but on the audience as well.  

 

All of this would kinda be worth it in the long run if there was a triumph, punch of empowerment at the conclusion of the film. And while Priscilla does manage to leave the relationship she does so quietly, with a whisper, leaving the third act feeling a little hollow.

 

The production design, as you’d expect from a Sofia Coppola film, is the epitome of glamor without being garish and over the top. Equally, the cinematography hovers over the story, casting it in a fantastical glow, but with the ever present sense, just like the narrative, of something being ever so slightly off with proceedings. 

 

Any actor willing to take on a role that not only is a historical cultural figure but one in which an actor received an Oscar nomination for portraying that character only a year ago is ballsy to say the least. Jacob Elordi is solid here as Elvis, with equally effortless charm coupled with and unpredictable, simmering anger. But this film belongs to Cailee Spaeny who is just as believable as a fourteen year old as she is as an adult, bringing one of the most remarkably contained performances in recent memory to the screen. 

 

With a star-making performance from Cailee Spaeny, at its very best Priscilla is a gorgeously rendered film but without the concluding punch of empowerment you could be longing for.