[Review] Priscilla (2.5/10)

 

Title - Priscilla
Production - A24, American Zoetrope, The Apartment
Starring - Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Ari Cohen, Dagmara Dominczyk, Tim Post, Lynn Griffin, Dan Beirne, Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll, Olivia Barrett
Writer - Sofia Coppola, Sandra Harman, Priscilla Presley
Director - Sofia Coppola
Release - 3 November 2023

I inadvertently rolled my eyes as I typed out under "Writer" the name Priscilla Presley. I now see where  and how the movie went off the rails, because this was the worst movie I've seen this year.

A project that was as high profile because of just the name "Elvis" cannot have its lead subject as the movie's producer, let alone writer. You will never get an honest story out of it. And throughout the entire movie, even before the knowledge of who was in the writer's room, I saw how the truth was hidden at every turn. And the best light was saved for the character of Priscilla.

Worse thing you can do was shine a terrible light on the man named "Elvis" - to paint him perhaps as a cradle snatcher, a homophobe, a cult leader wannabe, a bad husband, an indecisive man-child; and yet unable to get the audience behind the lead character of Priscilla, you will definitely alienate your viewership.

And worst thing was, this movie made Sofia Coppola looked incompetent both as a director and a writer. None of the scenes carried any weight that would be significant by the end of the movie. The dialogue were atrocious at times, especially toward the end of the movie when the lines were as if the entire writer's room just gave up because of how tedious everything had been.

The rest of the supporting cast were introduced in one scene and then never had any significance after that. The most random thing was having Elvis lead a cult or a book club to a group of his female fans that just suddenly came out of nowhere, just sitting around in his living room. No prompt nor reason given, no conclusion; it was just there because Priscilla the writer felt it was important to include. And c a couple of scenes later it was Elvis saying one or two lines to the Captain on the phone, who we did not hear; and that was the end of that.

And that was also the whole movie. Very random scenes strung together, then cut to a song playing in the background accompanied by a montage of clips of a pool party or a random ball game; and then onto the next scene.

You are really doing something wrong if even an inexperienced wannabe like myself can pinpoint to exactly what was wrong with your movie. 

And I have never experienced a worse ending in a movie than this one where Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" played to a finally "grown up / matured" Priscilla making the wise decision of leaving the marriage. I cringed just thinking about it again.