3.5/5 stars
A young girl crosses a pink fluffy carpet barefoot – the very first shot of Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla is as delicate as you might expect from the director of Lost in Translation.
After time apart, Elvis calls and she convinces her parents to let her go to Memphis, Tennessee, and move into the singer’s Graceland home. Still only 17, she enrols in a Catholic school to graduate, and even bribes a fellow pupil to help her cheat in her exams.
Coppola, who adapted the book, does not hold back on the more difficult aspects of their relationship, from Elvis’ notorious reliance on prescription pills to his controlling behaviour or even his propensity for violence.
When she suggests she get a part-time job, “It’s either me or a career, baby”, he intones in that familiar snarl, which the Australian-born Elordi effortlessly captures.
Priscilla, meanwhile, has to deal with internal angst, with the papers full of rumours about Elvis and Nancy Sinatra, actress Ann-Margret and various starlets.
With pitch-perfect production design and costumes at her disposal, Coppola truly captures the era, and even dives into Elvis’ brush with spiritualism, gurus and LSD.
The film falters slightly in its final third, perhaps not quite delivering the emotional gut punch you would expect as Priscilla resolves to leave the only man she has ever loved.
Does it get in her head enough? Maybe not, and it is arguably more conventional than Coppola’s 2006 period biopic Marie Antoinette. But it ends on a satisfyingly bittersweet note of resignation, shades of black replacing the pink fluffiness.
