Priscilla
プリシラ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Fourteen when she met Elvis; the film watches a girl being furnished like a room.
Priscilla Beaulieu is fourteen and living in Bad Nauheim, West Germany, where her stepfather is stationed with the American military, when she is introduced at a party to Elvis Presley. He is twenty-four, at the height of his fame, two months from the end of his army service, and he singles her out. Her parents worry about the age gap and the celebrity, but the two begin seeing each other: a grown man grooming a schoolgirl. When his service ends he flies home, and she hears little from him.
In 1962 he brings her to Graceland and takes her to Las Vegas, leaving postcards written in advance for his assistant to send to her parents. A year later he persuades them to let her move to Memphis, live with his father and stepmother, and finish school at a Catholic girls' school. Life at Graceland is comfortable and lonely. Elvis is away for months filming in Los Angeles; the papers print stories of his affair with a co-star, and he tells her they are publicity for the film. She is fond of his grandmother and the staff. She sees his sudden rages, followed by remorse and excuses. When she wants sex, he refuses, saying she is too young.
He proposes in 1966, they marry in Las Vegas in 1967, and she is pregnant almost at once; she would have liked time for the two of them first. Their daughter, Lisa Marie, is born in 1968 as he prepares his comeback on television. His prescription drug use, his absences and his affairs go on, and they drift into separate lives. In 1973, visiting him in a hotel after a show, she finds him hazy with drugs, and he tries to force himself on her; she tells him to stop. She tells him she is leaving. He asks whether there is another man. She says she wants a life of her own. After saying goodbye to his grandmother and the housekeepers, Priscilla drives out of Graceland, past the fans waiting at the gates.
Starring
Cailee Spaenyas Priscilla Presley
An American teenager in West Germany who meets Elvis at fourteen and grows up inside his world at Graceland.
Priscilla Presley’s story
At a party in West Germany, Elvis, twenty-four, singles out fourteen-year-old Priscilla and starts to court her: a grown man grooming a schoolgirl, with her parents' uneasy consent. In 1963 he persuades them to let her finish school in Memphis, and Graceland becomes her world: he chooses her clothes and hair, gives her pills, leaves her alone for months and waves away the stories of his affairs. She sees his rages and his remorse, and he will not sleep with her until they marry, saying she is too young. They marry in 1967 and she is pregnant at once. His drugs, absences and affairs go on, and they drift apart. In 1973, after he tries to force himself on her, she tells him she wants a life of her own, and drives out past the fans at the gates.
Jacob Elordias Elvis Presley
The most famous singer in the world, ten years older than Priscilla, who courts her and then shapes her life around his.
Elvis Presley’s story
Elvis is twenty-four and two months from the end of his army service when he singles out fourteen-year-old Priscilla at a party in West Germany and begins grooming her. In 1962 he flies her to Graceland and Las Vegas, and a year later persuades her parents to let her live in Memphis. He picks her clothes and hair, gives her pills, leaves her for months to film and calls the stories of his affairs publicity. His rages end in remorse. He refuses to sleep with her, saying she is too young, and marries her in 1967. His drugs, absences and affairs go on. In 1973, hazy with drugs, he tries to force himself on her; when she says she is leaving, he asks whether there is another man, and she answers that she wants a life of her own.
Dagmara Domińczykas Ann Beaulieu
Priscilla's mother, uneasy about the star courting her daughter, who in the end lets her go to Memphis.
Ari Cohenas Paul Beaulieu
Priscilla's stepfather, an officer stationed in West Germany, whom Elvis persuades to let her move to Graceland.
Why it matters
Priscilla retells a story long sold as a fairy tale, the schoolgirl who married the King, from inside the girl. Sofia Coppola adapted it from Priscilla Presley's own memoir, with Presley as an executive producer, and keeps the camera at her height: the long waits in a mansion, the tenderness and the rages arriving from the same man, the slow work of being remade to his taste. The issues are the ones the old story smoothed over: a twenty-four-year-old man's pursuit of a fourteen-year-old girl, control that passes for devotion, a young woman raised to be someone's companion rather than herself. Lisa Marie Presley objected before her death that the script made her father look like a predator. Cailee Spaeny won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at Venice. What the film leaves is the question of how a girl finds herself when her whole adolescence was shaped to fit someone else.