Photo:Philippe Le Sourd/A24
Philippe Le Sourd/A24
Last year brought usElvis, in which director Baz Luhrmann turned the wild, troubled life of Elvis Presley (Oscar-nominatedAustin Butler)into a full-fledged carnival — thrilling rides, raucous crowds, even a sideshow tent housing a freak known as Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). Now we have directorSofia Coppola’s exceptional new film about Presley’s first and only wife (Cailee Spaeny).
What makes the film both fascinating and troubling — what makes it haunting — is how Coppola has the insight to tell the story with a kind of stereoscopic vision.
On the one hand, we’re fully immersed in the perspective of young Priscilla, who’s only 14 when the 24-year-old Presley (Jacob Elordi)begins courting her. Adrift in a romantic fantasy, she floats along, slowly being pulled further into his irresistible orbit, until they finally marry.
Priscilla.Sabrina Lantos/A24
Sabrina Lantos/A24
The movie is a strangely exquisite portrayal of this hollow existence — Coppola is one of the few directors, maybe the only one, willing to invest (risk) an entire movie narrative with such stillness. Priscilla’s situation isn’t much different from Scarlett Johansson’s empty hours in Tokyo inLost in Translation(Coppola’s movies, in fact, could probably all useLostsomewhere in their titles), but there’s no Bill Murray in the wings to assure her that she’ll be able to move on.
Priscilla.Ken Woroner/A24
Ken Woroner/A24
But then there’s our own contemporary perspective, too — our dismay at the gross imbalance of power between this male superstar and, at most, a very young woman. To us Priscilla’s dream looks like captivity and abuse — as if Presley couldn’t help falling in love with Lolita. Coppola’s repeated shots of Priscilla’s painted toenails may or may not be a reference tothe opening minutes of Stanley Kubrick’s notorious film adaptation of that Nabokov novel, just as a scene in which Elvis dictates Priscilla’s wardrobe may or may not echo avery similar moment between Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak inVertigo, the ultimate #MeToo movie nightmare. Your mind might just as easily register a cold, shivery reminiscence ofBluebeard,with the young girl doomed to be the next victim of the old serial killer.
The point is that the film is saturated with this sexual uneasiness. What Priscilla experiences as glamorous nothingness, the audience experiences as something more like dread.
The real Priscilla and Elvis.Getty
Ultimately, Priscilla wakes up from her nightmare — she divorced Presley in 1973 — although here Coppola stumbles. There’s not really any defining moment that marks Priscilla’s decision to leave Elvis. She just tells him, truthfully if rather flatly, that they aren’t spending enough time together, that they’ve grown apart, and that’s it. Instead, we know Priscilla is nearing the end of her Graceland journey principally because her hair has returned from a June Carter Cash pile to a soft, natural style — which, in countless, much more conventional movies, signals that our heroine has returned to normality and emotional health.
Priscillaopens in theaters Friday.
source: people.com
