Elvis and Me by Sofia Coppola

The biographical drama “Priscilla: Elvis and Me” by Sofia Coppola, an adaptation of the memoirs of Priscilla Presley, the only wife of the late king of rock and roll, is being released. Tells Julia Shagelman.

Contrary to the popular expression “Elvis has left the building,” which once ended his concerts, Elvis never left us completely. Since the late 1950s, he has been a constant presence in pop culture, sometimes fading into obscurity, but then invariably returning. One such comeback was Baz Luhrmann’s biopic Elvis (2022), which grossed more than $288 million worldwide, received several Oscar nominations and provided the King of Rock and Roll with a new generation of fans.

Almost immediately followed by several documentaries, an animated series on Netflix, where Elvis became a government agent guarding law and order, and the filming of a film about his wife, who promised a different, female perspective on what was happening at his home, away from the stage, spotlights and flashbulbs. . Not that this view is such news: Priscilla’s memoirs, under the sales title Elvis and Me, were published back in 1985 and became a bestseller. They have even already been filmed: a two-part television film of the same name was released on ABC in 1988 and became an absolute hit for the channel.

However, new times require a new reading, and Sofia Coppola took on the adaptation of Priscilla’s memoirs, according to her, who was engrossed in this book when she was fourteen. The daughter of Francis Ford Coppola has earned a reputation as one of the main experts on girl psychology in modern auteur cinema. Who else, if not her, should tell the amazing story of a schoolgirl who suddenly became the lover of the brightest star of her time? Priscilla herself, insisting that it was love and not something subject to the criminal code, became the executive producer of the film.

When prototype characters take part in film production, the question arises: how much and what exactly will audiences be allowed to see? Not everyone is ready, like Elton John in Rocketman (2019), to lift the curtain on their less attractive sides. However, feature films are most often made not for the sake of “truth”, whatever it may be. In the case of “Priscilla,” for example, it seemed to be in order to finally show the heroine as a person separate from Elvis, through the transformation from girl to woman, which Coppola had always been so interested in.

But, paradoxically, the screen Priscilla (Caileigh Spaeny) is allowed even less privacy than the Priscilla from the memoirs. We get to know her exactly at the moment when not Elvis (Jacob Elordi), but his colleague Terry (Luke Humphrey) at the American military base in Germany, pays attention to her. He offers the girl a delightful opportunity to meet the star, and she, of course, agrees. This is how a fateful meeting occurs.

Unlike Luhrmann, Coppola does not ignore the issue of the age difference – she is fourteen, he is ten years older – but even emphasizes it: the almost two-meter Elordi looms menacingly over the miniature Spaeny, like the Beast over the Beauty from a fairy tale. But the characters’ relationship is also fabulously chaste, and after several dates with touching hand-holding, Elvis leaves for home.

Priscilla begins an activity familiar to all Coppola heroines: languor. The girls from The Virgin Suicides (1999) languished in their parents’ house, waiting for adulthood and freedom that never came. Charlotte from Lost in Translation (2003) languished in a Tokyo hotel room waiting for her husband, who was missing on business trips. Marie Antoinette from the film of the same name (2005) languished in a golden cage at Versailles, waiting not only for her husband, who was missing on government business, but also for the revolution. Priscilla languishes first in Germany, waiting for a letter or phone call from overseas, and then at the Graceland estate. First, in anticipation of her lover, who disappears on show business business, and then, after the long-awaited coming of age, finally, her husband.

Days, weeks, months, years and minutes of screen time are spent trying on outfits, carefully applying makeup, rare telephone conversations and even rarer meetings, most of which are devoted to discussing the excuses under which Elvis refuses to have sex with Priscilla. Sometimes there are quarrels over betrayals and drugs, designed to demonstrate his difficult character, but significantly softened in comparison even with the original source, which avoids almost all the sharp corners. The film ends with the separation of the couple, without moving on to the part where the heroine becomes not an annex to her famous husband, but herself. Almost nothing remains of her on the screen and in the memory: only a high bouffant, a pair of false eyelashes and a famous surname.