3.5/5

“I have to go, if I stay, I will never leave. Elvis’s response was maybe another place, another time.”
This cryptic answer to wife Pricilla leaves many unanswered questions to the reality of the breakup between the King of Rock and Roll and his young wife. It feels like that this quote is a summation of the ambiguous nature of their relationship.

The movie “Pricilla” is based on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me written by his ex-wife 8 years after his death. I haven’t read the book which it is hoped depicts their relationship better and, in more depth, than this strangely unsatisfying effort from Director Sofia Coppola.
There is one aspect that the film does evokes successfully and that is the loneliness and isolation experienced by a woman who is dating, then married to the most famous person in the world. This is what Coppola captures so well in this film and while effective it does not always make for entertaining viewing.
The story suggests that deep down Elvis and Pricilla loved each other dearly but that fame was the barrier neither could overcome. Sofia Coppola does use and interesting style in that the camera never leaves Pricilla’s point of view. She also explores Pricilla’s mannerisms to highlight the emotional journey she is going through. However, the film is slow and there are some scenes where nothing happens at all. So, if u like your Biopics fuelled with action packed moments, and in Elvis’s life there were many, you may feel short-changed.

The good news is that Cailee Spaeny (Pricilla) was unbelievably authentic. The way she portrayed Pricilla from aged 15 all the way to adulthood was incredible. Pricilla was an American schoolgirl living on an US Army base in West Germany with her family when she got invited to a party hosted by Elvis, who was serving there in the army. One party led to another and Elvis became enamoured with the young girl. Eventually the superstar persuades Pricilla’s parents to live with him in his home Graceland, whilst she finishes her studies. The movie depicts all this as well as her relationship to her parents and how they brought her up. Later, the movie shows how Pricilla mainly on her own raises her own child, Lisa Marie, that she has with Elvis.

Jacob Elordi as Elvis has big boots to fill even though he is playing a supporting role. He was great in some scenes, but for me he felt a little bit flat in others and I wanted to see a bit more charisma. After all the film suggests that his presence was part of the reason that she found it so hard to leave him.
The film did touch base on the allegations of cheating by Elvis and how the scandals affected her. Spaeny is very poignant in these moments and reveals how resistant Pricilla must have been. When she drives out of the gates of Graceland one last time at the end of the movie, the soundtrack plays, “I will always love you” by Dolly Parton and it is very moving. She leaves the little girl behind and is transformed into an independent mother and woman.
Interestingly, Col Tom Parker doesn’t appear as a character in this picture. I do think he should have been in the film because it would have been intriguing to see what her relationship was with him.
“Pricilla,” shows that there were other factors that contributed to their separation, such as the pill addiction Elvis had that contributed to his anger spurts which made him violent, but not to her.

This film should have come out either before or a couple of years after Baz Luhrmann’s mega successful “ELVIS” as most people will compare “Pricilla” to it, which is a bit unfair. Coppola’s film is a much quieter affair, concentrating as it does on a love affair that dies under the glaring lights of superstar celebrity.
It is an admirable effort and does chart beautifully the growth of a girl dominated by a famous man, into an independent woman. However, the pacing is uneven and given the potential drama of the subject matter, unforgivably dull in too many scenes.
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