Priscilla | |
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Directed by | Sofia Coppola |
Written by | Sofia Coppola |
Based on | |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Philippe Le Sourd |
Edited by | Sarah Flack |
Music by |
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Production companies | |
Distributed by | A24 |
Release dates |
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Running time | 114 minutes[1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $20 million[2] |
Box office | $30.9 million[3][4] |
Priscilla is a 2023 American biographical drama film written, directed, and produced by Sofia Coppola, based on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley (who serves as an executive producer) and Sandra Harmon. It follows the life of Priscilla (played by Cailee Spaeny) and her complicated romantic relationship with Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi).
Priscilla premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2023, and was released in the United States by A24 in select theaters on October 27, 2023, before expanding wide on November 3.[5] It received generally favorable reviews from critics.
In 1959, 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu is residing with her family in Bad Nauheim, West Germany, where her father is stationed in the U.S. Military. At a party on the base, Priscilla meets 24-year-old renowned singer Elvis Presley, who has been drafted into the military at the peak of his fame. Elvis takes an immediate interest in Priscilla, and the two begin casually dating despite her parents' concern over their age difference and Elvis's celebrity status. Elvis eventually returns to the United States after his service and loses contact with Priscilla, leaving her crestfallen.
In 1962, Elvis reconnects with Priscilla, proclaiming his love for her, and asks that she come to the U.S. to live with him at Graceland, his estate in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis purchases Priscilla airfare to make a visit, during which she is welcomed by Elvis, his friends and business partners, and his beloved grandmother. The couple take a trip to Las Vegas, where Priscilla indulges in prescription drug abuse with Elvis. A disheveled Priscilla returns to Germany, and, with Elvis' help, convinces her reluctant parents to allow her to move to Graceland and complete her senior year of high school in Memphis in 1963.
While her time spent with Elvis at Graceland is pleasant, Priscilla is treated as an object of fascination and derision at her Catholic high school due to her association with him. Though she is welcomed by Elvis's grandmother and his staff at Graceland, Priscilla soon finds herself controlled by Elvis's gruff father and stepmother, and isolated during Elvis's lengthy trips away to Los Angeles, where he is shooting a number of musical comedies. On one occasion, Elvis has Priscilla model dresses for him and his friends, and urges her to revamp her appearance by dying her hair black and donning fake eyelashes. Distracted by the new conditions of her life, Priscilla narrowly manages to graduate high school.
Priscilla's isolation and compartmentalization of her life begins to take a toll on her mental state, which is worsened by the highly publicized rumors of Elvis's alleged infidelities, including with his co-star Ann-Margret. Priscilla makes an unexpected appearance in Los Angeles to confront Elvis about the affair, but is defeated when Elvis threatens her and insists that she must learn to accept his behavior.
Eventually, in 1967, Elvis proposes to Priscilla, and the two marry. Their happiness is fleeting, however, as Elvis's career pressures and worsening substance abuse negatively affects the couple's relationship. Priscilla quickly becomes pregnant, and gives birth to their child, Lisa Marie, in early 1968, as Elvis is preparing for his NBC comeback special. Priscilla struggles to navigate the relationship as Elvis grows increasingly emotionally volatile, and the two eventually begin leading separate lives, with Priscilla spending most of her time in California, and becoming romantically involved with Mike Stone, her karate instructor.
While visiting Elvis in his hotel room after a performance in 1973, Priscilla finds him inebriated, and he makes forceful sexual advances toward her. She later informs him that she is filing for divorce. After making a visit to Graceland and saying goodbye to Elvis's housekeepers and grandmother, Priscilla drives away, as a number of Elvis's fans loiter outside the property gates.
On September 12, 2022, it was announced Sofia Coppola would direct an adaptation of Priscilla Presley's memoir Elvis and Me, starring Jacob Elordi as Elvis Presley and Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla Presley.[7] When asked what made her want to adapt Priscilla's memoir for her next feature film, Coppola responded in an interview, "I've had her memoir for years and remember reading it a long time ago. A friend of mine was talking about her recently, and we got around to discussing the book. I read it again and was really moved by her story. I was supposed to start this big Edith Wharton project that was gonna take five months to shoot and felt really daunting. I came up against a few hurdles, so I just decided to pivot to making one film with one idea. I was just so interested in Priscilla's story and her perspective on what it all felt like to grow up as a teenager in Graceland. She was going through all the stages of young womanhood in such an amplified world—kinda similar to Marie Antoinette."[8][9]
When asked what made Cailee Spaeny the right choice to play Priscilla, Coppola stated, "The character goes from the age of 15 to 27 over the course of the film, so she had to be able to act and age across a big span of time. It was really important for me to have the same actress playing Priscilla at those different stages of her life, and I think Cailee can pull it off. She's such a strong actress, and she also looks very young."[8] Of Jacob Elordi's casting as Elvis, Coppola stated, "I thought nobody was gonna look quite like Elvis, but Jacob has that same type of magnetism. He's so charismatic, and girls go crazy around him, so I knew he could pull off playing this type of romantic icon. But we're talking before we've even started filming, so I can't get too deep into it."[8][10]
Coppola revealed in an interview that Priscilla Presley is an executive producer of Priscilla.[8]
In emails which were exchanged with Coppola on September 2, 2022, and which were later obtained by Variety, Lisa Marie Presley, who died in January 2023, criticized how the film's script portrayed her father, stating in one message that "My father only comes across as a predator and manipulative. As his daughter, I don't read this and see any of my father in this character. I don't read this and see my mother's perspective of my father. I read this and see your shockingly vengeful and contemptuous perspective and I don't understand why?"[11][12]
Principal photography for Priscilla began in Toronto on October 24, 2022.[13] Filming wrapped in early December.[14]
Main article: Priscilla (soundtrack) |
Priscilla does not have Elvis Presley's music on its soundtrack. Coppola's husband, Thomas Mars, and his band, Phoenix, scored the film.[15] Sons of Raphael wrote original music for the film.[16]
Priscilla premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2023.[17] It screened as the Centerpiece Selection of the 2023 New York Film Festival on October 6[18][19] and had its Canadian premiere as a special presentation at the 42nd Vancouver International Film Festival on October 7.[20][21] The film was distributed in the United States by A24, and in Italy by Vision Distribution.[7] Originally to be distributed by Stage 6 Films and Sony Pictures Releasing International outside the United States and Italy, Sony later exited the project upon Presley's estate withholding music rights.[22] Mubi later acquired these rights, with its sales company The Match Factory handling international sales and Mubi itself distributing in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, the Benelux, Turkey and Latin America.[23]
Priscilla was released on digital platforms on December 15, 2023, followed by a Blu-ray release on February 13, 2024.[24] The film will be released on Max in the United States on February 23, 2024.[25] It will be released on Mubi in the United Kingdom and Ireland on March 1, 2024.[26]
The film made $132,149 from four theaters in its opening weekend, an average of $33,034 per venue.[27] Expanding to 1,344 theaters in its second weekend, the film made $5.1 million, finishing in fourth.[28] It then made $4.8 million from 2,361 theaters in its third weekend.[29] It made $2.3 million in its fourth weekend, becoming Coppola's second-highest film domestically in the process with $16.9 million.[30] The film grossed $20.9 million in the United States on a budget lower than $20 million.[31]
During its first weekend in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the film finished in sixth place.[32] The film grossed £1.4 million during its first full week in theaters, including £643,800 over the weekend.[32]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 84% of 286 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "With Cailee Spaeny's performance in the title role leading the way, Priscilla sees Sofia Coppola taking a tender yet clear-eyed look at the often toxic blend created by mixing first love and fame."[33] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 79 out of 100, based on 59 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[34] Audiences polled by PostTrak gave it a 71% overall positive score, with 50% saying they would definitely recommend the film.[28]
Positive reviews praised the casting of Spaeny and Elordi, with some commenting that the actors highlight the vast power disparity between Priscilla and Elvis.[35][36][37] Ben Kenigsberg of The New York Times described Spaeny’s performance as "sensitive" and "protean",[36] while Marlow Stern of Rolling Stone wrote, "Spaeny, who is 25 but makes for a convincing teenager, is an absolute marvel, nailing Priscilla's complicated mélange of emotions — the wide-eyed wonderment and youthful desire, the apprehension and fear — while Elordi’s Elvis feels more grounded in reality than Austin Butler's pouty hip-shaker."[38] Critics also commended the film for its exploration of themes present in Coppola's previous films, such as the isolation of fame, femininity, and "privilege without power".[39][36][37]
Stern added, "You couldn’t ask for a better person to handle this material than Coppola, who's no stranger to depicting young female protagonists and the powerful men who enjoy keeping them locked in gilded cages, whether it be the Park Hyatt Tokyo, the Chateau Marmont, the Palace of Versailles or Graceland. As the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, she’s lived it, and is uniquely equipped to show what it's like to put a big, flawed man on a pedestal only to see that pedestal crack."[38] Stern concluded that the film is "a transportive, heartbreaking journey into the dark heart of celebrity, and [is Coppola's] finest film since Lost in Translation".[38]
Alison Willmore of Vulture wrote, "The marvel of Priscilla is in its dual awareness, how it’s able to immerse us in the bubble-bath-balmy perspective of a teenager experiencing an astonishing bout of wish fulfillment and, at the same time, always allow us to appreciate how disturbing what’s happening actually is."[39] Willmore’s review noted, "Priscilla is a teenage fantasy and wouldn’t work without acknowledging the headiness of being romanced by the most famous man in the country, though it’s telling that the film feels thinner and more rushed as its main character tires of her husband’s acting out and compartmentalizing of her within his life and realizes she can push back".[39]
In his review for The New Yorker, Anthony Lane wrote, "To point out that Priscilla is superficial, even more so than Coppola’s other films, is no derogation, because surfaces are her subject. She examines the skin of the observable world without presuming to seek the flesh beneath, and this latest work is an agglomeration of things—purchases, ornaments, and textures. We see an array of outfits, chosen by Elvis for his wife, each one lovingly accessorized with a handgun. Closeups tell the tale: bare toes, at the start, sinking deep into the nap of a carpet; false eyelashes and china knickknacks; a single pill (the first of many) that Elvis lays on Priscilla’s palm, as if it were a Communion wafer; and a mini-sphinx, gilded and ridiculous, that we glimpse as she eventually flees from Graceland. If she stays there any longer, being Mrs. Presley, she, too, will shrink into a thing."[35]
Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times reviewed the film positively, writing, "There is much more to Priscilla Presley's story left untold here: motherhood (Lisa Marie appears briefly here, at different ages), her own infidelity, her future romances, her friendship with Elvis until his death in 1977, her film career, The Naked Gun movies...But with piercing matter-of-factness, Coppola ends this movie, her strongest in more than a decade, at just the right moment: when a dream finally dies, and the thrill is well and truly gone."[37]
BBC Culture's Nicholas Barber found it an "understated, non-judgemental portrait" of Priscilla, which was in stark contrast to the tone of Baz Luhrmann's telling of Elvis's story in Elvis (2022).[40] Commenting on Priscilla and Luhrmann's film, Lane said, "We need both movies, I would argue: last year’s frenzied act of worship and now this irreverent response, all the more potent for being so still and small."[35]
Filmmaker Jane Campion praised the film, saying "Don't be fooled by the apparent softness of Sofia Coppola's vision or the gentle sensitivity of her gaze, it's just that Sofia plays soft to deliver tough. There is so much dare, risk and rigor in Sofia's filmmaking, so much radical trust that it scares the pants off lesser filmmakers."[41]