Coppola has mentionedMarie Antoinette when talking about her new filmPriscilla. This time,the princess isPriscilla Presley and her Versailles is Elvis’s palace,Graceland,where she was installed at the age of 17 after attracting The King’s attention three years earlier.
The film is an adaptation ofElvis and Me,Priscilla’s memoir of their relationship. Before herdeath last year,their daughter Lisa Marie Presley came down heavily on Coppola’s script for being too harsh on her father. But her mother,who has an executive producer’s credit,has been promoting it while taking care to stress she went on loving her ex-husband long after their divorce.
Coppola’s is certainly not a pretty picture of Elvis and his attitude to the guileless 14-year-old schoolgirl he started dating in Germany when he was doing his military service.
It’s not that he exploits her sexually. One of the stranger aspects of their love affair is the fact it was unconsummated long after she reached the age of consent. Presley has said she remained chaste until their wedding night when she was 21.
Until then,according to the film,she led a Rapunzel-like existence while he was off making films,doing concert tours and flirting with his co-stars. Although he had her enrolled in high school,she made no friends and after graduating,Elvis’s bad-tempered father made it clear she was not allowed to take a job lest she violate house rules by indulging in idle chat about her personal life.
Coppola evokes all this in persuasive detail. As Priscilla,Cailee Spaeny effortlessly spans her journey from wide-eyed adolescence to disillusioned young womanhood,while Australia’s Jacob Elordi,fresh from his turn as an insouciant young aristocrat inSaltburn,has no difficulty in evoking Elvis’s glamour.