— filmmaker Sofia Coppola's engrossing new film — begins, it's 1959 and 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu is living in Wiesbaden, West Germany, where her stepfather, an Air Force captain, is stationed.
This is a story about a time when people drank Coca-Cola from a glass bottle, and indeed, in the opening sequence, Priscilla, wearing a pretty pink sweater, is sitting at a drugstore counter, sipping a Coke with a straw. A man approaches. Priscilla has caught the eye of a polite young Army officer who invites her to join him and his wife for a party in the coming weekend at the off-base home of his good friend Elvis Presley.
A 24-year-old man setting out to woo an adolescent girl is unsettling, then and now, but Coppola leaves judgment to the viewer, and instead holds tight to Priscilla's worldview, as recalled in her 1985 memoir,. Priscilla is rightly sure that her parents will refuse to give her permission to accept the invitation, but they eventually give in. The polite officer wins them over.
Elordi never sings again in the film, but in that one number, and in the ways in which his Elvis remains a brilliantly gifted, easily manipulated fool, he becomes an icon who's more relatable than the version depicted in Baz Luhrmann's over-amped. Coppola is interested in the star's inner angst only insofar as how it affects Priscilla, who is independent-minded enough to find her way to Elvis but not strong enough to prevent that rebellious spirit from being subsumed by his will.
Much of the film is taken up with the minutiae of Elvis and Priscilla's romance, which is interrupted by his remaining military service, Hollywood film duties and the need to win over her parents. Elvis begins taking prescription drugs to stay awake and go to sleep and Priscilla begins popping them too, to keep up with him, to be a part of his world.
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