Priscilla

this is so good so so good. so so good. so so so so good. oh i can’t say it enough. a rewatch and a longer review was clearly on the horizon… my heart broke when i first heard cailee spaeny’s voice in priscilla’s first scene if i’m being honest. she sounds like a child. not sure why i didn’t see it coming even tho i knew she was only 14 there. also.. hearing a teenager girl tell her mother “he needs me” is absolutely heartbreaking. everything about her whole situation makes me so sad. i know there’s a few controversial stuff that priscilla presley herself is involved with, especially the whole thing with her daughter. but i really don’t know much about it and well this film isn’t really about that and it’s more about her growing up and her relationship with elvis, so thats what i’m going to talk about here. i didn’t want to compare this with the elvis (2022) film because i myself absolutely despise elvis presley and i wasn’t a fan of that film. i only pushed through it for olivia dejonge.  “Priscilla” has to be the most visually appealing film i’ve watched this year. i found myself just staring at the sets in the background and out of the many specific scenes that i really loved. the montage after elvis leaves germany was my favourite.. i mean.. the attention to little details in those scenes were incredible. she looked and felt miserable without him. her entire life felt upside down, It was like every waking moment was consumed by thoughts of him, and she genuinely believed she had to be with him to make sense of her life. Sofia Coppola’s ability to capture those emotions with such intricate details made that montage so pleasing to look at. shortly after, priscilla visits graceland… we see that 16-year-old Priscilla was out for two days after Elvis gave her drugs to "help her sleep" which is just deeply troubling to me. and what’s even more disturbing is that elvis proceeds to brush it off like it never happened. this is when we first see the insane power dynamics, consent issues and just generally the darker side of their already messed up relationship.  there's also this one particular scene and it’s something i think about constantly since i first watched it. oh it absolutely breaks my heart!! it’s the one where elvis is sitting with a group of girls and priscilla is on a chair right behind the girls and he asks a girl what perfume she wears and she says Chanel No. 5 which also happened to be priscilla’s signature scent. yeaa…… i mean!! i was pleased to see jacob elordi’s performance, but there’s nothing good to say about elvis here. he called her “a baby” when they first met and also repeatedly called her “little one” he knew exactly what he was doing.  while i can maybe…. see why sofia coppola might not be for everyone. she definitely is for me because i absolutely adore her and her filmmaking, people think that there is no plot to her movies and that nothing really happens but i don’t think that to be true. i feel that despite the fact that she does heavily relies on her aesthetics, she really puts everything into her films. if you watch her interviews and the way she talks about movies, you can feel her passion for films. It's like she's not just telling a story; she's creating an entire experience. There's this subtlety in her storytelling, and even though it might not hit you over the head with a traditional plot, it's there, woven into the fabric of her aesthetic choices and character nuances. you can tell she fucking loves doing it. now, about feminism and girlhood in her movies – it's there, but not in a loud way. yeah she’s not spelling it out, but you can feel the complexities of being a girl in the stories she tells. there’s a kind of delicate exploration of girlhood, and it's not just about what's said; it's about what you see and feel with the characters. as i do with all my reviews, i always like to point out a flaw. so… i felt that the last 30 minutes just felt a bit abrupt, it all just unfolded so quickly and suddenly, out of nowhere. It's like the film was building up so beautifully, and then it hit the climax.. and I was expecting a bit more context or resolution. i feel like.. at least 15 extra minutes could’ve provided that perfect balance, which would’ve rounded out the story in a more gradual and satisfying manner. the actual ending itself was amazing. It had this liberating vibe that resonated well with the narrative and that was all i could’ve asked for. i loved this.