Priscilla: Coppola’s Quintessence of Glamorous Isolation
I’m not Sofia Coppola’s biggest fan. I’m not denying her power nor her talent—Coppola has cultivated a sad girl aesthetic that she wields beautifully in each new story she tells, portraying the seemingly unavoidable moments of melancholy that come with being a girl. The Virgin Suicides and Lost In Translation revel in intimate detachment and delicate despair without sinking into its entitlement. However, though I wouldn’t go as far to say I hated The Beguiled, The Bling Ring, or Marie Antoinette, I believe they sunk too far in privilege, monotony, and aesthetic. These stories blatantly erase the people of color from the adapted narratives. Her films highlight actively white and insulated characters as if they are solely fitting for her aesthetic. In other words, I believe Coppola does one thing well and excels within that one thing: telling stories of white, privileged sorrow in gilded cages. Coppola’s Priscilla, fortunately, fits the definition of a gilded cage like a glove.
Priscilla is beautiful and boring. I found myself often checking the time as my eyes glazed over at yet another scene of a luxurious, solitary bedroom. Priscilla herself did not seem to have any personality or reflectivity beyond her expressive doe eyes and alternating hair and makeup looks. She was never allowed to live a life outside of Elvis and Graceland. Even her expression, hair, and makeup was subject to the whims and wants of Elvis. So interestingly, Coppola’s dull repetition evokes the exact emotions of Priscilla with the audience. I stared at a screen full of beautiful eye candy yet felt the time tediously tick by. When Priscilla drove away from Graceland to Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” I felt a simultaneous fulfillment and freedom to the film's ending. As far as entertainment purposes go, my own viewing experience mirroring the boredom of Priscilla’s is maybe not ideal. Yet, that’s the Coppola way and I think a more amusement-oriented approach would result in a worse film, and I’m not overtly disappointed at the resulting mundanity. Priscilla is undoubtedly simplistic and surface-level in a lot of respects, and the intense self-seriousness only draws attention to that. The work’s depths lie in the unprecedented depiction of Elvis instead of directorial attempts at uncharted complexities.
We already know about the flashy life of Elvis through the recent film Elvis, and of course, through the legend, the music, and the movies of the King of Rock ‘n Roll. Coppola isn’t interested in that. The world Coppola creates is anchored in the mundane moments of Priscilla’s life, juxtaposed by the audience member’s preexisting knowledge of Elvis’s flamboyant iconography. She traverses, and barely deviates from, Priscilla’s isolation, intimate connections, and interwar interactions.
One such deviation is a scene of Priscilla in Las Vegas with Elvis, where Priscilla asks to take pills for the first time rather than Elvis offering them. Even with images of roaring casinos and an obviously pivotal moment in Priscilla’s dependency, the scene retains a forceful undertone of tedium. This tedium is meant to prove Priscilla is a possession even when outside of Graceland, but it also meant I found it difficult to emotionally invest in what the movie clearly believed to be a significant turning point.
Coppola portrays manipulation, possessiveness, physical and verbal attacks with a sweetness that sometimes comes across a bit silly. I could not never tell what was genuinely consequential. Between pillow fights that turn violent, Elvis’s off-putting exclamation of the line “I’m going to be a Daddy” to Priscilla, and a bewildering LSD scene, I always felt like the film took every second seriously even when what was on the screen felt so unserious. These scenes no doubt provided a new perspective on Elvis and shed light on the uneasy uncomfortable, I just wish I could more easily discern the plot points that were genuinely consequential.
When I walked away from the movie theater I felt incredibly neutral about Priscilla. From the four people I went with, two fell in love and felt powerfully connected and reflected, and two thought it was terrible. This is a white, female experience of manipulation and abuse hidden in elaborate glamor. I fully believe that it needed to be told, that the people who do love and relate to this movie completely deserve to feel that way, and that one does not necessarily need to be white or female to relate to it. Priscilla is not a flawless film. I would not call it phenomenal. Yet, I wholeheartedly believe it fulfilled Coppola’s every intention. A direct evocation of emotions drawn from Priscilla Presley’s early life, Priscilla is the story of the ultimate icon of the sad girl aesthetic envisioned by the woman who practically invented it; it is Coppola doing what Coppola does best.