PRISCILLA

Priscilla, directed by Sofia Coppola and shown on network TV this weekend, was a strangely creepy movie that ramped up the general consensus that for all the great records he made during the 1950s, Elvis Presley had some weird ideas about courtship that, perhaps unintentionally, chime with how I imagine our current king might have behaved towards his first wife. Alone in Graceland, teenage Priscilla Beaulieu wanders its lushly carpeted rooms in a manner I imagine Diana Spencer doing in the corridors of Buckingham Palace, whence she was closeted for her own safety in the period between her engagement to Charles and the wedding ceremony in Paul’s Cathedral. Both of these virgin girls were seemingly lost, though perhaps trapped is a better way to describe the predicament in which they found themselves.

Priscilla is based on the book Elvis And Me, written with ghost-writer Sandra Harmon by Priscilla Presley, who is its executive producer, and first published in 1985. I read it while I was researching my Caught In A Trap book, my fictional tale of how Elvis was kidnapped in 1975, its title inadvertently reflective of Priscilla’s dilemma once her parents agreed that she come to live at Graceland, ostensibly chaperoned by Elvis’ witless father Vernon and his second wife. The film, originally released in 2023, follows the book fairly accurately, dwelling on the couple’s private life and how Priscilla shakes off her initial naivety to eventually confront Elvis about his macho attitude and the unrealistic demands he placed upon her. She’s portrayed as a heroine which, as matters eventually played out, is quite fitting. 

Unlike Elvis, the 1922 movie starring Austin Butler in the title role and Tom Hanks as his manipulative manager Colonel Tom Parker – who, tellingly, is absent from Priscilla – this film makes no attempt to hide Priscilla’s age – 14 – when she first met the singer, fatefully, at a party at the house in which he lived in Bad Neuheim in West Germany during his stint with the US Army. Thereafter she’s sucked into his orbit, increasingly moulded by him into the kind of Barbie-doll like woman he requires her to be; clothes, hair, make-up, subservience, keep smiling, the lot. Slightly alarmed, she goes along with this at first, her compliance gradually giving way to incomprehension and, eventually, dissent. 

As far as the bedroom department is concerned, Elvis desires his woman to remain a virgin until they are married, this despite her efforts to persuade him otherwise. He’s not above taking a few saucy Polaroids of her, though. Meanwhile, of course, it is suggested that in Los Angeles Elvis has his merry way with women who co-star in his films, amongst them Nancy Sinatra and Ann-Margret, while Priscilla remains at Graceland, her only companion a fluffy white poodle while she ponders over lurid stories about Elvis and them in movie magazines. When they eventually marry, Priscilla quickly falls pregnant, giving birth to Lisa Marie, and conjugal relations cease, again to Priscilla’s vexation. Along the way we see Elvis briefly engage with the counterculture, which is not to his liking; play with, and encourage Priscilla to use, guns; insult The Beatles; lose his temper and throw tantrums; share an acid trip with Priscilla; and generally behave like a spoilt brat towards everyone, apart from Col Parker to whom he bends the knee, albeit on the telephone. 

Not surprisingly Priscilla gets fed up and leaves, by which time she’s taken up karate, though her subsequent affair with martial arts teacher Mike Stone is not mentioned. Nevertheless, by the close she’s defied Elvis by allowing her hair to return from dyed jet black to its natural auburn, and flow down over her shoulders, and wear tight pants instead of dresses. Driving out of the Graceland gates or the final time, sound-tracked by Dolly Parton singing ‘I Will Always Love You’, she deserves a cheer, female empowerment the message. 

Cailee Spaeny is good as Priscilla, rarely off screen, Jacob Elordi too as Elvis, his accent just right. But overall, I felt the film was strangely unsatisfying, just like the marriage had been.