There is almost no Elvis Presley music inPriscilla.
Presley mentions this when he latches onto Priscilla at a party for comfort, but the 24-year-old G.I.
sees in her something more than just company.
This holds true even after he moves her into his home as a virginal kings consort.
However, in Priscillas case, she isnt even at her quarter-life when we meet her.
Theres a measured aloofness that balances between good ol boy charm and what could be construed as predatory intention.
Above it all, hes a figure who really does want to reign over everything.
When it comes to Priscilla, that is expressed like an All Shook Up Henry Higgins.
Hes obsessed with playing with his living doll and dressing her as the perfect (vacant) woman.
Its an implicit sentence of permanent exile.
Instead Coppola and cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd remarkably bathe the film in curiously muted and natural textures.
Theyre searching for the banality of living, even in Graceland excess.
Ours would be to recognize there is an unsettling and ultimately insurmountable power and age dynamic between the two.
Ironically, it is with Spaenys fragile performance where the film finds its true identity.
Priscillapremiered at the New York Film Festival on Oct. 6.
It opens everywhere on Nov. 3.
Rating:
4 out of 5
