Not a Book: Priscilla

This Sunday’s post is about Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, which I watched on the flight out to Manila the other week.

The Priscilla of the title is Priscilla Presley, wife of Elvis and the film is based on her own memoir and she’s an executive producer of the movie as well. So you might expect that the movie is pro-Elvis. Except that it’s more complicated than that. Priscilla met Elvis when her father was stationed in Germany when she was 14 and he was 24. Two years later, she is invited to visit him in LA for a holiday, but he actually takes her to Vegas. A year later, he asks her to live with his dad and she goes – attending a private Catholic girls school to finish her education. And while they do get married eventually it doesn’t really get any better for her.

I would describe this as a portrait of isolation and loneliness – it’s a quite a good watch, but it’s really depressing – because Priscilla was a teenage girl with a crush, who ended up married to her first love and caught up in a world that she doesn’t really belong in on her own terms. It stops before Elvis’s death and I’m interested to know what she did after that. And I can see why Elvis and Priscilla’s daughter, Lisa Marie, was not keen on the film – as Elvis does not come out of it that well really. I’d go as far as saying that he was a bit of a creep. Oh and there is no Elvis music in it either!

This one is so new that you’ll still need to pay for it to watch it on the streaming services – or you can watch out for it on your next long haul flight!

Happy Sunday everyone!