Priscilla

Priscilla (2023) – A Poetic Reclaiming of an Icon’s Inner World

A biographical drama directed and written by Sofia Coppola, Priscilla subtly and powerfully changes the cultural lens—from the myth of Elvis Presley to the fact of life for Priscilla Beaulieu Presley. It is based on her book, Elvis and Me published in 1985 that delves into love complexities, power struggles and identity issues that exist within Graceland’s golden walls.

Rather than being a complimentary piece to Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (2022), this movie sets a completely different mood: Priscilla does not make a spectacle. It is about silence, control, and growing up inside someone else’s dream. It reframes a worldwide figure as more than an adjunct to royalty but as someone who has to navigate through personal cost of loving someone when universal understanding remains blurred.

🎬 Production & Artistic Vision

Sofia Coppola brings her own intimate and atmospheric style (Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, The Virgin Suicides) which are her signature films. As a result, it becomes a gentle storm—calculated atmosphere-wise; character-based film with deep psychological implications.

The cinematography by Philippe Le Sourd gives the film a cold, isolated color scheme which separates Priscilla from the rich world around her where she suffers emotional isolation. The score was replaced with dream-like, period accurate music made by phoenix, a French indie band who are led by the husband of Coppola, Thomas Mars. This lack of Elvis in an Elvis movie ironically serves to accentuate his presence though Priscilla’s eyes as he is seen as a distant god like figure whose gaze is never directly reflected.

🌟 Plot Summary

As the narrative opens 1959, 14 year old Priscilla Beaulieu catches sight of Elvis Presley while serving for his military in Germany. By that time, Elvis is already a celebrity of worldwide proportions aged 24. Their initial romance – built on extravagant indulgence and flattery – takes young Priscilla into a world beyond her emotional understanding.

Eventually after years of correspondence, she moves to live at Graceland where her adolescence is fettered to appearances only allowed under strict regulations and emotional manipulation. She completes school with Elvis always watching but her daily life becomes suffocatingly small. The glittering façade of living in close association with a superstar quickly fades away when Priscilla confronts the disorienting fact that she is both adored and alone amidst all this.

Elvis, portrayed as emotionally volatile and controlling, swings between affection and detachment. This further destabilizes Priscilla’s sense of self with his increasingly erratic behavior, substance use, and affairs. Thus, she is expected to remain quiet, composed, and loyal—an ideal woman defined by the man she is with.

In the movie, we bear witness to Priscilla’s transition from an observer to someone who gradually carves out her own identity. Rather than confrontation as climax point of the film’s final act; this one ends in departure. Quietly walking out of Graceland as a mother Priscilla—rendered in minimalist fashion—is the moment of liberation that has been depicted with utmost subtlety and emotional gravity. It is a powerful ending note that emphasizes Coppola’s interest in emotional texture rather than dramatic catharsis.

👤 Character and Performance Highlights

Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla Presley

Cailee Spaeny delivered a deeply internalized performance for which she won the Best Actress award at Venice Film Festival. She ages ten years on screen playing Priscilla—a teenager curious about her husband to a woman taking back control over herself. In biopics there are few things that capture such frankness like Spaeny’s micro facial expressions, slight shifts in posture or unexpressive emotions.

Jacob Elordi (known for Euphoria and Saltburn) offers a complex portrayal of Elvis—neither villainized nor glamorized. His Elvis is charming but deeply flawed, sweet but suffocating. Elordi resists mimicry in favor of emotional realism, creating a hauntingly believable depiction of charisma laced with control.

🎭 Themes and Interpretive Layers

Power, Control, and Age Imbalance

At its core, Priscilla is a meditation on power dynamics in romantic relationships—especially when one partner is a cultural god and the other a schoolgirl. Coppola doesn’t moralize; instead, she simply places us in Priscilla’s shoes, allowing the discomfort and imbalance to speak for itself. The age gap isn’t emphasized with sensationalism—it’s allowed to haunt every scene.

Silence and Emotional Invisibility

Priscilla is frequently silent—listening, observing, absorbing. This isn’t due to passivity, but because she is not yet allowed to be. Her identity is curated by Elvis’s preferences: what she wears, how she speaks, when she sleeps. The film examines how women in iconic relationships often lose their voice—sometimes for years.

Selfhood and Escape

Coppola’s version of empowerment is not a big bang; it happens quietly within the characters. Priscilla does not find her freedom by confronting Elvis in public or rushing away from him in anger—she does it by simply walking out on him. Once she walks out, she reverts to being herself again.

🎥 Visual and Aesthetic Choices

Priscilla, like all the films of Coppola, is known for its aesthetic beauty that matches internal upheavals:

As Priscilla’s hope dwindles, the color palette shifts from pastels and golds to cooler grays and neutrals.

Although they are period accurate, the costumes are simple, showing how glamour can be like a uniform too.

The production design beautifully recreates Graceland interiors but also gives off a sense of imprisonment through grandeur.

🏆 Awards and Reception

Best Actress at Venice Film Festival (Cailee Spaeny)

Critics applauded its direction, performances and restraint as well.

Both Rotten Tomatoes’ and Metacritic’s scores indicate highly favorable reviews by critics.

According to Priscilla Presley herself, this film was real, relatable and touching as she felt understood by Coppola.

Final Thoughts

Priscilla is an amazing achievement in feminist film-making that doesn’t make noise but stays on. It’s a story of fame with no excesses, love without any romanticism and surviving without the sensationalism associated with survival as a victim of your own success. Sofia Coppola breathes life into this familiar public figure and Cailee Spaeny takes up that mantle beautifully.

This is not a scandal—it’s about living through it, growing up within locked gates and velvet drapes. What Priscilla is telling us is that sometimes it is the most daring thing for a woman to reclaim her narrative—and just leave.