REVIEW: PRISCILLA. Seven years of foreplay... and then what?

Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny in Sofia Coppola's Priscilla.

WARNING: If you are a diehard Elvis fan - or even a fan of last year's dazzling Oscar-nominated Elvis - you may be disappointed in Priscilla. There are no Elvis recordings on the soundtrack, and co-star Jacob Eldori (Elvis) doesn't sing. Though Elvis is clearly present here, he might as well have left the building.

*******

Sofia Coppola's movies all seem to carry an underlying sense of melancholy and uneasiness.

Whether she is exploring adolescent angst in her debut film, The Virgin Suicides (1999), the perils of being a teenage monarch (Marie Antoinette, 2006), or the confusion and loneliness of a young newlywed (Lost in Translation, 2003), Coppola has so far produced a filmography that focuses on the fascination with, fear of, and reaction to sex and desire as young women come of age.

But it's not pretty. In fact, it's often disturbing.

Coppola's latest effort is Priscilla, based on Priscilla Presley's best-selling 1985 memoir about her life with Elvis Presley, and it is every bit as unsettling as her previous stories about sexual awakening in young women. Only here, she ventures into the already overly publicized personal and sexual habits of the King of Rock and Roll. To be sure, Elvis' had his idiosyncrasies and fetishes, and Coppola depicts them here with calculated precision to devastating effect.

Framing each important moment about their relationship from Priscilla's memory, Coppola builds on Elvis' controlling behavior with increasing aggression. From his initial reassurance that he'd "never hurt" his 'Cilla, to his off-hand suggestions about her appearance (changing her hair color to black, wearing heavier eye make-up), Elvis asserts his power over Priscilla with a gentle protectiveness that becomes dangerous and frightening over time. He initially makes her feel safe, then systematically destroys that trust as her emerging maturity challenges his own insecurities and demons. It's easy to see how she was drawn into his world, including his reliance on prescription drugs.

Coppola heightens Elvis' domination visually: her two leads, Jacob Eldori and Cailee Spaeny, are five inches taller and three inches shorter than their respective celebrity counterparts, exaggerating the overshadowing presence Elvis had on the diminutive Priscilla. Every time he reaches out to hold her, she seems like a doll in comparison to his larger-than-life image.

At times, I couldn't decide which was more upsetting to watch: Elvis' controlling, manipulative and sometimes violent behavior, or Priscilla staying in his unhealthy orbit. The film follows the arc of their relationship from their first meeting in 1959 when she was only fourteen until 1972 when she decided to end their marriage and find a life of her own. Through a series of carefully crafted vignettes designed to demonstrate the increasingly destructive nature of their liaison, Coppola is able to evoke the claustrophobic essence of their life despite the very public existence that marked almost the entirety of Elvis' adult life.

I found much of this movie uncomfortable to watch, mostly because of Coppola's astute and clever vision that focuses on the young, impressionable Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny): her face a kind of blank canvas, that grows increasingly disillusioned and sad as her adolescent crush and romantic expectations for a life with Elvis become more distant and elusive. Coppola is a master at capturing a young girl's hope/fear of what life and sexual desire mean, and here she conveys a dreamy longing familiar to many women as they consider life beyond their parents' home, careers, love, and their own sexual identity.

Even more, what she does with music is stunningly effective and makes the whole of Priscilla's experience more poignant and heartbreaking. Coppola reportedly could not get the rights to use Presley's music but, even so, has said that she did not want Elvis' music to distract from Priscilla's story and had already decided to go in a different direction. That path - and the lyrical journey it creates - is punctuated by songs that are evocative of a teenage girl's longing. Frankie Avalon's "Venus," The Ramones' "Baby, I Love You" and The Little Dippers' "Forever" are among the sad-sweet selections that enhance the phantasmagoria surrounding Priscilla's surreal life with Elvis. The only time Coppola includes an Elvis song, it is an instrumental, solo piano version of "Love Me Tender": so sad and slow, underscoring Priscilla's adolescent loneliness and making it feel achingly unbearable.

Much of Elvis' fixation on Priscilla seemed to stem from his own conflicted sexual appetite: still mourning the death of his mother with whom he had a very close (and some argue unhealthy) relationship, Elvis sees the virginal Priscilla as kind of a sanctuary. He convinces her parents to let seventeen-year-old Priscilla live with him under the guardianship of his father Vernon (her father is still stationed in the army in Germany), he continues to have affairs with other women, from an unknown admirer called "Snookie" to famous celebrity co-stars like Ann-Margret and Nancy Sinatra. Priscilla calls him out on all of these and expresses her disapproval, but Elvis reminds (threatens?) her that he needs someone like her who will look the other way and understand his dailliances - can she be that woman? Voulez-vous an ultimatum?

Of course, Elvis repeatedly apologizes for his transgressions, his bad behavior, alternately showering Priscilla with expensive gifts, shopping sprees and promises of exotic vacations. But the moment when he gifts Priscilla with her first handgun is chilling - as is her delight - and a subsequent scene shows her placing matching weapons next to all those elaborate dresses. Certainly, a pearl-handled .22 will go best with a gold metallic evening gown.

In many ways, Priscilla's connection with Elvis from their first meeting until they married in 1967 (when she was 21), amounted to seven years of foreplay. She has insisted she and The King never had sex until their wedding night, and that he insisted on deciding "when" they would consummate their relationship. In between, they flirted and teased, touched and kissed, she dressing in more provocative outfits while he admired and photographed her. It all seemed innocent and benign but, in retrospect, looks creepy and disgusting. The fact that a then twenty-something male would engage an unknowing teenage girl in sexually provocative behavior and think it was honorable - while he screwed other woman on the side - is particularly unsettling.

Ultimately - when Priscilla gets pregnant soon after their wedding - Elvis' sexual detachment from her is clear and disconcerting. No longer desirable and not yet ready for motherhood, Priscilla is left to handle all these enormous changes on her own. It is clear Elvis has issues with women as sexual beings, as mothers, as equal partners. Even after she gives birth to their only child, Lisa Marie, her place as his wife is not what she imagined it would be. Is there a universal truth here? Coppola doesn't say, but it's clear Priscilla is not just one woman's tale of disenchanted love.

There has been considerable buzz around this film as awards season gears up. Spaeny won the Volpi Award for Best Actress at this year's Venice Film Festival and is now on the short list for an Academy Award nomination. Other accolades are still up in the air, especially Coppola's directing and screenwriting efforts (she won Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation). Of course, the potential negativity toward the movie's portrayal of Elvis Presley may work against it, which would be unfortunate, as Elordi delivers a thoroughly charming and moody performance. His Elvis is charismatic, if controlling, and his presence hangs over the film even though it's Priscilla's story.

If you were a fan of last year's Elvis, Baz Luhrmann's brilliant, if sometimes excessive, biopic that focused on Colonel Tom Parker's control of Presley, you may not like what Coppola is doing here. Her film is much quieter, darker, more introspective and ultimately more disturbing as it depicts the seductive ways in which Elvis transferred another type of manipulation onto the young woman he claimed to love forever. Taken together, Luhrmann and Coppola's films contribute to a larger, more comprehensive and more intimate examination of power, control, sexual desire and domination - and the impact of celebrity on love.

Priscilla's recollections of her life with Elvis suggest a completely different experience from others who were close to Elvis - and even Elvis himself. As such, Elvis fans may not agree with the notion that their hero was a troubled addict and controlling, abusive lover and husband. 'Cilla's isolation is palpable, and her very troubling, distinct, and decidedly different-from-others memories reminded me of a writing workshop I attended years ago.

Tobias Wolfe was one of the keynote speakers, and he began his remarks by reading a passage from his memoir, This Boy's Life, about growing up in the 1950s with his mother, brother and abusive step-father. After the book was published, he asked his brother to read it, and was surprised by his response: "Who did you model the step-father after?" his brother inquired. When Wolfe responded that it was their step-father, his brother was surprised. "Really? I don't remember him ever being abusive." Wolfe's conclusion - and his point - was that we can all live through a shared experience and come away with very different recollections from others who were there.

Such is the case with Priscilla - the film and the former Mrs. Presley. We may all have our own perception of who Elvis was, how he lived and loved, and what type of person he might have been. Numerous historians, friends, and relatives have attempted to tell their stories, usually keeping Elvis' mystique and stature in tact.

Until now. Coppola has taken Priscilla's story and made it her own, placing Ms. Presley into the vast lexicon of young woman struggling to find their own identity, to understand their sexuality, to embark on a path of self-discovery... only to find their hopes dashed, their aspirations ignored, their dreams unfulfilled and disappointed. When she finally leaves Graceland to the strains of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," Priscilla's pain and disillusionment are past resolving.

Are you lonesome tonight?