Movie theater. Sofia Coppola, with “Priscilla”, dives into the heart of “this kind of American royalty”

The film “Priscilla”, directed by the American Sofia Coppola, tells the story of the woman who will become Priscilla Presley after her marriage to the King, Elvis. It is also the story of emancipation. In theaters from Wednesday January 3.

Priscilla Beaulieu was only 14 years old when she met Elvis Presley in 1959 in Wiesbaden, Germany, on an American army base where her father was stationed. The artist did his military service there. The teenager was still in school and, faced with her parents’ disapproval, she only joined her lover in 1962 in Memphis.

It is precisely this entire period that interests Sofia Coppola, who here adapts in part the book by Priscilla Presley, Elvis and me : “I only knew the myth of Elvis and Priscilla, their photos together, this kind of American royalty, says the director. But reading her book, I discovered that I knew very little about Priscilla. For example, I didn’t know that she was still in high school when she lived at Graceland. When I learned his story, it made a strong impression on me, I was very surprised.”

Themes dear to Sofia Coppola

We find in Priscilla themes dear to Sofia Coppola, the young girl trapped in a golden cage, groomed and spoiled but who is bored and who is there above all to please or entertain. If the film, co-produced by the person concerned, shows empathy for her character, this is less the case for Elvis Presley. Constantly surrounded by a male court, showing a paranoid, megalomaniac, unfaithful and “addicted” to pills personality, he doesn’t really grow out of it.

Sofia Coppola did not want to condemn him however: “I really wanted to show it through her eyes, trying to approach him with sensitivity. The fact is that he was suffering and his temperament was not just that of a bastard… He wanted to be a recognized actor and only played in turnips, which obviously does not excuse him. Their relationship was complex and I wanted to tell, for her, at that age, what it was like to have to grow up and find her identity , living with a personality whose control encroached on private life.”

Beautifully produced, very well performed by a duo from the TV series, Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi,
Priscilla is perhaps a little too wise, but depicts with quite a bit of irony a time when women were even more silenced and “objectified” than today.