Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla: Female Adolescence is a Timeless Narrative

Words: Charlotte Amy Landrum

The past year has been good to Sofia Coppola fans: with the ongoing talking point of Girlhood - from the aesthetic encompassing of all things coquette to the lived experience of female adolescence - 2023 was undoubtedly the Year of the Girl. A time where culture knuckled down and decided to take the intricacies of being a young woman as serious business.

Yet mainstream culture is late to the game as usual, because the films of Sofia Coppola have been dedicated to stories of young women for the past two decades. The release of Priscilla at the beginning of 2024 felt like the summation of this girlhood discourse, with Coppola swooping in to share the story of Priscilla Ann Presley, a woman who had an adolescence both completely otherworldly yet unexpectedly relatable.

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Priscilla, played by Cailee Spaeny, is towered over by Jacob Elordi’s Elvis. The height difference alone is enough to make the viewer squirm. At just 14, Priscilla meets the enigmatic Elvis, 24, at an American air force base in West Germany. Detached from a typical teenage girl's life with her father moving the family from army base to army base, an already lonely Priscilla sees a spark of hope for her life through the man everyone loves.

Elvis is American pop culture personified, and he heaves upon Priscilla a showering of attention a teen girl can only dream of. Dominating every room he is in, Elordi’s Elvis emphasises Priscilla’s normality through his omnipresent entourage. The King of Pop’s social power is unmatched in the film, and even without seeing him on stage, we become aware of his  importance through the eyes of Priscilla. Her parents giving in to his wishes to date their young daughter being the first signal that this man's money and power overrides all morale.

Priscilla’s vulnerability and isolation is heightened by how little we see her with people her own age. School is a time of daydreaming of the pop star lover, and after class is for attending parties with adults. Depicting the lonely, disconnected girl is Coppola’s forte: the director gives the softly lit stage to the female side character, the one who watches on as her hotshot photographer husband takes Japan or the next rock n’ roll legend boyfriend tours the world. 

It is through Coppola’s centering of the reserved woman that we are able to obtain gorgeous shots of intimate moments: laying in the bedroom, applying makeup, and strolling along gardens. The world of Coppola’s films is solitary, and although it is also visually ethereal, it doesn’t take away from how incredibly isolating it feels. Whether it is due to location or ideology, the Coppola protagonist finds herself alienated in these spaces of pastel pinks and soft blues. Language barriers whilst in Japan, teenage girls living in a strict Christian household, a girls school during the civil war, and now the empty home of a worldwide icon. 

“The audience rides with her through a dilemma of love and pain that is usually unspoken, and although conveyed with minimal dialogue throughout the film, we see these emotions through glimpses of Spaeny’s understated expressions.”

For Priscilla, Graceland quickly becomes her gorgeous prison. As we watch her be driven onto the compound, How You Satisfy Me by Spectrum plays over the scene. Priscilla’s gaze out of the car window accompanied by a shoegaze song that pointedly does not fit the time period of the film not only works around the Elvis estate’s barring of any of his music being included but also invites the modern audience to see themselves in that moment.  We all feel a pang of awe and looming fear. This is not just a film about the experiences of Priscilla Presley, but the experience of being a young woman who is losing control of her own narrative. A reminder of how adolescent naivety felt; a Little Red Riding Hood rendition with eyeliner and tailored dresses.

Parallel to the modern lonely teenage girl reblogging pictures of vintage lipsticks on Tumblr to put her mind at ease, Priscilla finds her temporary escape through beautiful objects. Reminiscent of the palace of Versailles in Marie Antionette (2006), we watch Priscilla silently meander in this ‘ideal’ ‘dream’ life. Enter shots of false eyelashes, luscious pastels, and a magnification of feminine beauty. But, despite the luxury, these belongings and aesthetics begin to feel like white noise as they are endlessly placed around the solemn Priscilla.

The low saturation shots of beauty items and Graceland feel like a daunting memory and not just an opportunity to showcase some aesthetically pleasing looks. It's these visuals that show the paradox of female adolescence: it is a time we look back on with nostalgia in all its whimsical youth, whilst also recognising all the ways it is riddled with powerlessness and moments you don’t flag as traumatic until adulthood. This is how Coppola proves the dismissal of her work as aestheticised and banal stories of poor little rich girls false. Priscilla doesn’t shy away from the privileges the protagonist holds, but instead showcases them starkly against the bleak relationship she faces, using glamorous, high femme visuals as narrative tools that undoubtedly have meaning. Coppola flawlessly balances romanticisation with realisation. 

Although I hate to admit it, I found myself constantly hoping Elvis would change his ways and they would live a happy life together, even after seeing his nonchalant cruelty and knowing the historical truth of the situation. This desire makes you feel somewhat pathetic and naive, yet it's this feeling that really connects you to Prisicilla. The audience rides with her through a dilemma of love and pain that is usually unspoken, and although conveyed with minimal dialogue throughout the film, we see these emotions through glimpses of Spaeny’s understated expressions. As mentioned in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Priscilla herself, the namesake of Coppola’s movie, wanted the film to showcase “that love was there, that the care was there.” Despite it all, the real world Priscilla never shook off a tenderness for the controversial figure of her ex-husband, and Coppola shows empathy towards her by portraying her story without judgement.

In 2024, after the Year of the Girl and the everlasting struggle of connecting with the people around us, Priscilla has arrived at the perfect time. Post-watch, it feels hard to believe that there wasn’t already an official cinematic portrayal dedicated to Priscilla’s story, but I’m glad of the wait. We are in an age of yearning, and this film is what the young women of today need most: stories of complex female adolescence that are told unapologetically through the lens of someone who has been through it all too.

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