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After the success of Baz Luhrman‘s 2022 biopic Elvis, based on the life of rock and roll icon Elvis Presley, some were confused by the news that Sofia Coppola would be directing a film based on the life of his ex-wife Priscilla, appropriately titled Priscilla in September 2022, so soon after its release. Based on the recently released trailer and Coppola’s previous work, Priscilla will provide a necessary look at Priscilla’s life before and throughout her relationship with the singer, as Luhrman’s film diminished her to a very minor role and glossed over the most jarring aspect of their relationship.
What Will Sofia Coppola’s ‘Priscilla’ Be About?
Starring Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla and Jacob Elordi as Elvis, Priscilla marks Coppola’s third collaboration with A24 and is based on Priscilla Presley’s memoir Elvis and Me. Presley also serves as an executive producer for the film, which follows her life from the ages of 15 to 27. Coppola was inspired to adapt Presley’s story after reading her memoir, and her adaptation will provide a much different perspective on the couple than Elvis, sharing with Vogue in 2022, “Priscilla is such a minor character in that film, so I never felt like I was treading on the same territory. I love that people were so into his film about Elvis, and now in a few years, there’ll be another film about Priscilla. I think it’ll be interesting to have two completely different interpretations of the same events and time period.”
How Will ‘Priscilla’ Compare to ‘Elvis’?
Elvis is a highly edited version of the life of the American icon from the perspective of Elvis’s manager Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) and leaves little screen time for his relationship with Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge). Luhrman takes creative liberties with historical events throughout Elvis’s life but keeps the main facts of his and Priscilla’s relationship intact. They met when Elvis was stationed in West Germany after being drafted into the US Army in 1957, married in 1967, and had their daughter Lisa Marie the following year. But the film only makes vague reference to their 10-year age difference, dancing around the fact that Priscilla was just 14 years old when she began dating the 24-year-old Elvis. Priscilla and the Presley estate were involved in the making of Elvis, with Priscilla, Lisa Marie, and granddaughter Riley Keough giving it glowing reviews, but the Presley estate has already slammed Coppola’s film, shortly after the release of the first trailer.
Sofia Coppola Is the Right Director to Tell Priscilla’s Story
Presley’s story seems like a perfect fit for Coppola, who has a proclivity for telling stories about misunderstood young (white) women like The Virgin Suicides, and those largely perceived as villainous in Marie Antoinette and The Bling Ring. She brings nuance and sensitivity to her depictions of girlhood and how complicated relationships with men inform the transition to womanhood. Presley and Coppola have undoubtedly lived very different lives but may have more in common than you’d think. As the daughter of one of the most renowned directors of all time, Coppola is no stranger to growing up in the spotlight by association with a man who would also go on to become an American icon.
Luhrman’s film makes an attempt at crediting all the Black artists Elvis was inspired by and ultimately profited off of, like B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), Little Richard (Alton Mason), and Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Yola), but fails to touch on Elvis’s predatory behavior with much younger women. His age difference with Priscilla at the time their relationship began is shocking, to say the least — she was just a freshman in high school and he in his mid-twenties — but Elvis largely glosses over this aspect, focusing instead on how he became a sex symbol whose onstage hip-thrusts were swooned over by women of all ages. It’s not entirely surprising that his relationship with Priscilla wasn’t a focal point of the film, which revolved around the singer’s tumultuous relationship with his manager Colonel Parker. Still, her story deserves to be told, and the timing is right.
Presley herself looks forward to the upcoming film, writing in a recent Instagram post, “I am excited about the interpretation of my book by the masterful Sofia Coppola. She has such an extraordinary perspective and I have always been such an admirer of her work. I’m certain this movie will take everyone on an emotional journey.” Though we haven’t seen much of the film aside from a brief teaser trailer void of almost any dialogue, if Coppola’s previous films are any indication, Priscilla will take a ruminative approach to the life of a young woman who came of age on the arm of a global superstar.
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