Priscilla Review: A Film About Priscilla Is Still All About Elvis

Posted in: A24, Kaitlyn Booth, Movies | Tagged: a24, elvis, Priscilla, Review

The film feels like it exists more to dull the spotlight that always shines on Elvis than to shine a brighter one on Priscilla and the life she has led.

Priscilla is a film that is supposed to tell her more about the title character, but somehow, Elvis and his presence still takes over and looms large over this production.

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

Priscilla And Looming Presence Of Elvis

They tell you never to meet your heroes because you’ll always be disappointed. It’s one of the reasons stan culture these days can be so vicious is that people think their idols are somehow above simple human failings. Famous people are just people who have massive spotlights on them, and those spotlights often highlight the good and the bad about the person. When an artist dies on the younger side or lives a tragic life, they are often infantilized by the people who idolize them, and speaking ill of them becomes taboo because you don’t speak ill of the dead. Regarding films about Elvis Presley, the 2022 film Elvis is about what we expect. It does look at the person’s flaws but rarely holds him accountable for the actions that he causes. Priscilla is looking to hold Elvis responsible, at least on some level, in the public eye by telling the story of the woman behind the man. Or, in the case of Priscilla, the girl.

Priscilla doesn’t shy away from the fact that she was a teenager when the two of them met or how dysfunctional the relationship was simply because of the power dynamic that existed between them. We see Priscilla go through her life as a child loving a man, then him somehow convincing her parents to let her finish high school while living in his house, and making sure to point out that their relationship was not consummated until she was of age. Was Priscilla groomed? By the strictest definition, it does appear so, but the woman herself would say that she wasn’t, so we must take what the actual person says into account here. The film isn’t going to let us forget this age difference, and it leans into how uncomfortable all of this is.

However, despite this being a film about Priscilla, she is somehow still in the background when this was supposed to be her story. Elvis is a presence that looms large in every sense; even just the height difference between the two of them makes him stand so much taller over her, and there is no escaping him. Perhaps that is the reality 0f Priscilla’s life; Elvis really was such a demanding presence that he took up every inch of space in a room until there wasn’t anything left for her. However, even if that was the truth, it still feels like we leave this film learning so little about Priscilla herself. Even if it was a film that was supposed to be about her, it still seemed more interested in showing us this different version of Elvis.

Because of this, the Elvis and Priscilla films actually complement each other exceptionally well. In Elvis, we know that everyone around Elvis is failing him, from his family to his manager. In Priscilla, we see the people who failed Elvis are trickling down, and because of this, now he is failing her. People are going to be upset about his portrayal in this film, and it is a lot, but it feels sincere, and this is the story based on the book from the lips of the person who lived it. Trying to say that she is wrong, that the complicated love story she lived wasn’t what she says it was, is invalidating as hell.

Priscilla ensures we never forget how uncomfortable everything about this movie is. Still, somewhere along the line, the woman who got lost behind the man also got lost in the film that was supposed to tell her story. We spend two hours seeing her life through her eyes, yet it still remains extremely unclear who Priscilla Presley is. We should know more about her than ever by the time the credits roll, and the other thing we do know is that if this telling is accurate, she should have left him much sooner than she did. The film feels like it exists more to dull the spotlight that always shines on Elvis than to shine a brighter one on Priscilla and the life she has led.

Priscilla

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Review by Kaitlyn Booth

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7/10

Priscilla is a film that is supposed to tell her more about the title character, but somehow, Elvis and his presence still takes over and looms large over this production.

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