The king is dead; long live Sophia Coppola’s Priscilla teaser
Free of Elvis songs or thousands upon thousands of cuts, A24's Priscilla teaser primes us for a different kind of Presley biopic
Elvis may have left the building, but his widow Priscilla is headed to theaters. Priscilla, the new film from Sophia Coppola, promises to take audiences on another spin through the Elvisverse. However, in the new teaser for the movie from A24, Coppola’s version of rock ’n’ roll royalty ain’t Baz Luhrmann’s Oscar-nominated kaleidoscopic melodrama, Elvis.
As the title suggests, this is not a superhero origin story of famed microphone swallower Elvis Presley, but rather his young bride, Priscilla. Also absent, unfortunately, was the Kentucky Fried Dutchman Colonel Tom Parker and any Elvis songs. Instead, A24 sets the spot to the propulsive Spectrum song “How You Satisfy Me,” giving the period peace a distinctly modern edge.
Though Luhrmann’s influence can be felt in Coppola’s other biopic Marie Antoinette, Priscilla offers a much less abrasive version of things. Here, it’s all ‘Cilla, all the time. The movie follows Priscilla (played by Caliee Spaeny) as she moves from high schooler to Graceland resident to America’s most beloved widow. Meeting Elvis (Jacob Elordi) at a party when he was already The King™, the teen girl becomes the star’s closest confidant as he goes off, cheats on her, and does everything depicted in Elvis. Opening on Priscilla’s impeccable makeup routine, the teaser does a chronological speedrun through her life, including many literal doors opened by Presley, from her teenage years to the birth of their child, Lisa Marie. However, we all know how this story is going to end.
The film is an adaptation of Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon’s 1985 best-selling memoir Elvis And Me, which was made into a TV movie starring Susan Walters and Dale Midkiff in 1988. The book also inspired the Depeche Mode hit “Personal Jesus.”
“It’s about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships,” Depeche Mode songwriter Martin Gore told Rolling Stone. “How everybody’s heart is like a god in some way, and that’s not a very balanced view of someone, is it?”
Priscilla has no release date but is “coming soon.”