Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla directly rebukes Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis

polygon.com:

Sofia Coppola brings a delicate touch to Priscilla, the A24 biopic of Priscilla Presley (née Beaulieu), who married Elvis Presley in 1967 and separated from him six years later. The movie runs out of steam in its final act, due to a scattered structure aimed more at tracing a real-world chronology than following character drama through to its most rigorous emotional outcomes. But until that point, it’s kept afloat by Coppola’s gentle conception of Priscilla’s story, which she unfurls through a pair of brilliant, alluring performances.

Priscilla feels like it’s descended from Coppola’s 2006 historical drama Marie Antoinette, which captures the French queen as a doll in an ivory tower. A similar approach in Priscilla sees its title character framed with fragility, as though Elvis might shatter her at any moment.

It plays like a rebuff of Baz Luhrmann’s Oscar-nominated 2022 biopic Elvis, in which the duo’s marriage is framed solely around Elvis’ experience, and the isolating effects of his growing fame. Their relationship weaves in and out of the tale of Elvis’ career, but without exposing how Priscilla was isolated from the world as well. Elvis also entirely glosses over a key detail that might’ve further complicated the icon’s historic legacy: When the couple first met in 1959, the King of Rock ’n’ Roll was 24 years old, and his eventual queen was all of 14.

Coppola’s movie has no such qualms about addressing their age difference. It’s based on Priscilla’s 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, and though Priscilla says she greatly enjoyed Luhrmann’s movie, Coppola’s version plays like a historical course correction in its artistic framing of events. She makes few alterations to Priscilla’s recollection of events, but each filmmaking