Priscilla

Venice Film Festival #15 – Sala Darsena

It’s no surprise I’m not a massive fan of Sofia Coppola. Having only seen three of films, none of them worked for me, but I went into this film hoping to enjoy it. I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps the biggest surprise is just how much I adored the filmmaking on offer. Perhaps it’s the Coppola films I’ve seen but I only really appreciated Lost in Translation for its filmmaking qualities. This film is drop dead gorgeous, the cinematography is inspired and so perfectly curated to place yourself in Priscilla’s position. The colouring and lighting however blew me away. I adored the aesthetics of this film. Much different from the Baz Luhrmann film, the film ditches the glossy pop of colour to a more subdued and darker atmosphere that perfectly links into the story Coppola wants to tell.

The comparisons to Baz Luhrmann’s film are inevitable and I honestly think they work very well together, even just if to show that biopics are inherently problematic as real accounts of people’s lives. This film paints Elvis in a different light, he is still the massive singer but, in this film, we see a more intimate and personal look into who he was. It’s interesting in a film called Priscilla, I feel like it does more for Elvis that her. It’s not to say it isn’t her story, it is, but I feel like the depth of character is missing and it feels more like an account of her life. When it ended, I really didn’t feel like I knew Priscilla, I just learned more about her.

It's interesting to frame your female character as being the product of male fallacy, in a way it’s reductive to who she is as a human as women are more than the men they are in relationships with, but perhaps this was the point Coppola was making as she was in a relationship with Elvis so young that up until she leaves him, she is defined by him. The ending then has a real strong meaning to it as she is finally becoming herself, not the result of Elvis. While I do like this read, I still think there needed to be more of her internal thoughts or at least informing us who she was as a person.

Cailee Spaeny gives a wonderful performance as Priscilla; she shines in the more reserved moments where she is doing so much with so little. I do however think her acting started to break away whenever she had to command the room and hold her own, not many scenes are like this, but it was glaring when they were. Jacob Elordi, I adore as an actor, and I feel like he did a perfect job at playing this different version of Elvis. He is more subtle, and you get to see more of him as a human in scenes, but you still believe he’s this huge singer. Sadly, the beautiful styling just is lacking in any substance for this to be as wonderful