TW: this article contains mentions of domestic violence and abuse.
Biopics about complicated historical figures can go a few ways, but traditionally none of them center the people most harmed by the male lead’s actions. The Hollywood boys club loves the image of a tortured genius, sometimes acting like the abuse was worth it for the art we got, other times presenting cruelty as essential to genius. These movies glorify images of abuse; they present the dramatic rise and fall of a legend through a whirlwind of glamorous drunken montages. When these films portray domestic violence, it is graphic and triggering, yet romanticized. The men are allowed to scream to their heart’s content. If women are in these movies at all, they are quiet and diminutive, suffering in noble silence. Who speaks for them?
In Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, male genius and abuse are secondary to the complex portrayal of Priscilla Presley. The film follows her life beginning at the age of 14, never shying away from the uncomfortable parts of her relationship with Elvis. This includes the fact that he started grooming her when he was 24, and invited her to move from Germany to Tennessee with him when she was still in high school. Coppola’s work has always centered on girlhood experiences, and Priscilla is no exception.
Priscilla’s youth is on full display when she first meets Elvis, nervous and soft-spoken because of his celebrity status, as well as when she feels self-conscious as students at her school whisper about her relationship. It’s uncomfortable to watch at times, but that’s the point. While we may have all fantasized as tweens about what we would do if we met our celebrity crush, the reality is never so sweet. Cailee Spaeny’s portrayal of Priscilla as a teenager makes it clear that the relationship was abusive and wrong from the start.
Where Priscilla really shines is when it shows the quiet, emotional moments that center on Priscilla’s experiences. Take the scene where she positions herself primly and properly on the couch at Elvis’ house in Graceland, waiting for him. The camera angles render her tiny compared to the furniture, the house, and Elvis himself. Or the scene where Elvis emerges soaking wet from the pool and she jokingly begs him not to get water on her, but he ignores her.
There is only one scene that portrays physical violence, a scene where Elvis throws a chair near Priscilla’s head. He never puts his hands on her directly, though we can infer that he did at some point. For the most part, the darkest parts of their relationship are kept off screen, centering Priscilla’s emotional state in the story. Elvis is often absent from the film for long stretches, only heard over the phone, while the camera centers on Priscilla’s subtlest facial expressions.
The film clearly proves that you don’t need to depict graphic abuse in order to show that a relationship is abusive. In addition to being physically violent, Elvis was controlling, self-centered, and obsessed with Priscilla’s “purity” when it came to sexuality, all traits that are given plenty of screentime. Why do we have this cultural obsession with portraying violence and aestheticized female suffering, the film seems to ask.
We know what abuse looks like. We’ve seen men win Oscars for portraying abusers, roles where they scream and sweat and sell the part a little too well. We’ve seen violence aestheticized and fetishized before being shunted off screen.
Instead of shunting her off screen, at the very end of the film, Priscilla tells Elvis she is leaving him, and drives away from Graceland for the last time while Elvis’ adoring fans gather as always outside the gates, hoping for a peek inside. The story ends on her own terms, with her determination to take her life back. Her story is one of a woman owning her autonomy, and standing strong and independent.
How does Elvis react to this—what happens to the man? This film doesn’t care. There are plenty of movies about him, including one released just last year. For a change, this biopic starts and ends with her.