Priscilla is absorbing material told with a quiet confidence; like Marie Antoinette, for at least two thirds of the way in, this feels like it is so close to being one of this director's most Formally and performance-wise impressive and inspired films. Whether you sense any deeper personal connection Coppola may have had with the story (Id need a psychology degree to unpack what it may or may not be like for this director to have been so close to a figure like Francis Coppola, though a much different context), the film largely works as a story where you get not only why a young woman would fall for this man at this time, but why it would be so hard to leave when it gets... rough.
When it's Priscilla in her high school years, in total yet totally understandable infatuation with Elvis (that time period when he goes away and she counts the months by calendar, chefs kiss), and even into most of the time into Graceland, it's engrossing. The flaw is when it kept going after running out of things to say; in that sense, ironically given how they are so wholly tonally different films, this has the same problem as Luhrmann's Elvis where it covers so much ground that it runs out of steam dramatically (the Hit The Points We Know sort of thing). If you asked me which is the superior film I'll say Coppola's, but it's not by a long shot exactly, just with different strengths for each.
Still, Spaeny gives, along with Dominic Sessa in The Holdovers, the OMG where did *that* come from Young actor turn of the year, as well as Elordi being ideally cast as *this* Elvis, and even with my qualms I would say to anyone vaguely interested to check it out. It's the kind of storytelling where the physical details are so impactful - watch what Priscilla does just before she goes to the hospital to give birth to her daughter, not subtle but a devastating fine-underlined point about her life as it was - and as per Coppola the production design and costuming and the camerawork is fantastic (though it took me a few minutes to adjust to how dark some of the scenes are lit).
And I must also add, other mostly splendid music choices besides (sampling from 80s New Wave to Santana), the opening needle drop ("Baby, I Love You," by The Ramones via Phil Spector) is as nerve-tingling as the final one is tacky (I'll leave you to be the judge, but I kind of groaned at that forced romantic irony).
PS: that moment when Priscilla breaks down and tells Elvis to stop reading from that book is one of my two or three favorite moments from any film this year.
When it's Priscilla in her high school years, in total yet totally understandable infatuation with Elvis (that time period when he goes away and she counts the months by calendar, chefs kiss), and even into most of the time into Graceland, it's engrossing. The flaw is when it kept going after running out of things to say; in that sense, ironically given how they are so wholly tonally different films, this has the same problem as Luhrmann's Elvis where it covers so much ground that it runs out of steam dramatically (the Hit The Points We Know sort of thing). If you asked me which is the superior film I'll say Coppola's, but it's not by a long shot exactly, just with different strengths for each.
Still, Spaeny gives, along with Dominic Sessa in The Holdovers, the OMG where did *that* come from Young actor turn of the year, as well as Elordi being ideally cast as *this* Elvis, and even with my qualms I would say to anyone vaguely interested to check it out. It's the kind of storytelling where the physical details are so impactful - watch what Priscilla does just before she goes to the hospital to give birth to her daughter, not subtle but a devastating fine-underlined point about her life as it was - and as per Coppola the production design and costuming and the camerawork is fantastic (though it took me a few minutes to adjust to how dark some of the scenes are lit).
And I must also add, other mostly splendid music choices besides (sampling from 80s New Wave to Santana), the opening needle drop ("Baby, I Love You," by The Ramones via Phil Spector) is as nerve-tingling as the final one is tacky (I'll leave you to be the judge, but I kind of groaned at that forced romantic irony).
PS: that moment when Priscilla breaks down and tells Elvis to stop reading from that book is one of my two or three favorite moments from any film this year.