Master director returns to the cinema with a disturbing true story

Thoughtful images, sophisticated production design and lots of pop music: this is Sofia Coppola’s cinema. Since the beginning of her directing career, she has followed characters who seem lost even in crowded rooms disappear into their world of thoughtsstarting with The Virgin Suicides through Lost in Translation to On the Rocks.

Her latest film, Priscilla, also contains many things that are directly linked to Coppola’s style. The Story of a young womanwhich runs into an American soldier in Germany at the end of the 1950s and falls in love with him, goes in an even darker direction.

In Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla biopic, Elvis Presley turns into a secret horror monster

Priscilla tells the story of the young Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny), who was born in New York but soon comes to faraway Wiesbaden in Germany. Her adoptive father, who is in the US military, is stationed there. A desolate placeespecially for a young girl who wants to discover the world but is only confronted with prohibitions.

You can watch the trailer for Priscilla here:

Priscilla is one of Coppola’s lonely protagonists and feels like a stranger, an outsider, wherever she goes. When she meets the sensitive man who is ten years her senior at a party, she is supposed to change their lives suddenly. Suddenly she’s living the dream of every girl at her school: she’s dating Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi).

At first glance, Priscilla seems like a sequel to Baz Luhrmann’s opulent Elvis biopic, which was released two years ago and became a surprise success. The film revolved around the relationship between Elvis Presley and his deceitful manager Colonel Tom Parker. Priscilla only appeared as a minor character.

More than a belated Elvis recap: Priscilla is a nightmare and at the same time a fantasy fulfillment

But Coppola doesn’t just fill a gap that opened up with Luhrman. Your film follows its own vision. Her Priscilla story unfolds between the shy images of a coming-of-age film and one unexpected fantasy fulfillment. For a brief moment, Priscilla is the happiest girl on the planet.

Little by little, however, things are creeping up threatening sounds in the movie. The dark corners of the rooms become larger. The carpet, which was previously comfortable, resembles a swamp landscape from which there is no escape. And Graceland, the powerful Presley estate in Memphis, is transformed into a cold prison.

Priscilla is not a classic horror film with jump scares and other familiar tricks of the genre that send shivers down our spines. If Coppola in tender images shows how its protagonist is paralyzed by a toxic relationship, it takes your breath away several times, especially in everyday situations.

When directing Priscilla, Sofia Coppola draws on common horror cinema patterns

The big stage performances, the spotlights and the cheering crowds stay away from Priscilla. The celebrated king of rock’n’roll is first a charming gentleman before he turns into one determining, oppressive power transformed without ever being specifically designated as such. To the outside world, Elvis remains a star.

However, Coppola’s keen observations reveal the choking words leaving his mouth. The constricting gestures with which he puts Priscilla in her place. At some point the film becomes so uncomfortable that it creates the kind of tension you get when you’re with one veiled horror villain located in a room.

The characters secretly know that they should flee immediately, but the horror has not yet been expressed. Maybe this will play out everything just in your head. But by then it is usually already too late. From second to second you can see how the mood changes and the other person takes possession of you.

A biopic as a secret horror film: Priscilla follows in the footsteps of Spencer with Kristen Stewart

After Spencer, in which Kristen Stewart fights for survival in the British royal family as Princess Diana, Priscilla is another outstanding film that focuses on the life of a historical figure (hidden) horror elements approximated. Although Coppola rarely spells out the horror clearly, it is definitely present in her film.

Coppola delves deep into Priscilla’s inner life. She is reprimanded by judgmental looks and demeaning gestures. Every time she makes a cautious attempt to break out, Elvis chokes her. But the escalation just doesn’t happen. Everything is normal. And that’s exactly what makes Priscilla so uncomfortable, so scary.

Priscilla runs from today, this January 4, 2024in German cinemas.

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