Priscilla: A Great Film About Control [critique]

In telling the story of the tumultuous relationship between Priscilla Beaulieu and Elvis Presley, Sofia Coppola creates the perfect counterpoint to Luhrmann's Elvis and reveals the breathtaking Cailee Spaeny.

Updated August 27, 2024: A few months after its release in theaters, the biopic of Priscilla Presley sign Sofia Coppola arrives this Tuesday evening at 9 p.m. on Canal Plus (it is also available on MyCanal). A perfect counterpart to the Elvis by Baz Luhrmann that the Première editorial team recommends to you.

Her name is Cailee Spaeny. And if you haven't noticed her in Pacific Rim UprisingOr Mare of Easttownyou won't soon forget her with the tour de force she achieves here. Embodying with exceptional fluidity and precision Priscilla Presley, from the age of 14 to 29, from her meeting with King Elvis in 1959 until their separation in 1972. This composition – awarded at Venice – could justify the discovery of this Priscilla if it did not contain other major assets in its pocket. Because if it will not reconcile Sofia Coppola with her detractors, she continues here to superbly dig the same furrow.

Her Priscilla dialogue with Virgin suicides, Somewhere and others Marie-Antoinette in this description of a young woman locked in a gilded cage. A willing victim, certainly – she wanted this love story, still a minor – but an undeniable victim since by escaping from her father's strict education, she joins another kind of prison – Graceland – inside which Presley will gradually cut her off from her family, dictate how to dress, make her become addicted to sleeping pills among other joys. Priscilla constitutes the perfect counterpoint to the flamboyant Elvis by Baz Luhrmann, the unsavoury underside of the glamorous decor.

And through her stripped-down approach that plunges us into the head of her heroine and a descent into hell that she gradually becomes aware of, Sofia Coppola hammers nothing home. She tells the story of the hold in a magnificent gesture of filmmaker and sisterhood combined.

By Sofia Coppola. With Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Dagmara Dominczyk … Duration 1h53.