Their story begins with Priscilla and Elvis in West Germany. Her stepfather, an Air Force officer, has been stationed there, while Elvis, aged 24, is completing his military service. When Priscilla is invited to a party by Elvis’s friend, she blushes and tells him she needs her parents’ permission to attend. The prospect of being at a party with Elvis Presley is deliciously tempting. In their first conversation, Elvis laughs and calls Priscilla a baby when she tells him she’s in the ninth grade; Priscilla has stars in her eyes.
Priscilla’s age (or the lack of it) is brought up several times in the film, mostly by other women. Her mother wonders why Elvis can’t find someone his own age. Scandalised women at a party remark how Priscilla looks “like a little girl”. To Elvis, she’s mature for her age. In their early conversations, he establishes a connection with Priscilla, both homesick in a foreign land (much like the main characters of Lost in Translation). Elvis opens up to her about his mother, who had passed away a few months prior, and Priscilla offers sincere comfort. When her parents question their relationship, she tells them, “Please don’t ruin my life. He just lost his mother. He’s grieving and he trusts me.” For teenaged Priscilla, the opportunity to provide comfort and feel needed by this older, cooler man is alluring. Words like “grooming” and “abuse” are never mentioned in the film, but the unsettling nature of the relationship loudly makes itself seen in Coppola’s every frame.
Portrait of a Marriage
In the first act of the film, Spaeny embodies Priscilla’s bright-eyed naivete, childlike idealism and teenage rebellion. She simpers and fawns over Elvis, greedy for every drop of his attention. When she first arrives at Graceland (Elvis’s sprawling estate in Memphis, Tennessee), Priscilla sits on all the chairs and sofas in the living room, an eerie game of musical chairs, trying her best to fit into this new world. Elvis is often surrounded by his friends and associates (nicknamed the Memphis Mafia), while Priscilla sits at the edge, happy to just be in his presence. Elvis is mercurial, oscillating between treating Priscilla with imperious condescension and showering her with genuine affection.
As time and the romance unravels, we begin to see glimpses of Elvis’s nasty temper and need to exert control over every aspect of Priscilla’s life. He encourages her to dye her hair black and use heavy make-up, because it “makes her eyes stand out more”. He chooses the colour of the clothes she wears, forbids her from getting a job because he wants her to be there at his beck and call, and dismisses her concerns over his constant affairs with his co-stars. “Don’t go imagining things,” he tells Priscilla when she finds an amorous postcard sent to him by another woman. When she tearfully protests, he roars at her to pack up her things and go back to her parents’ house. When she meekly offers her opinion about Elvis’s new song, he throws a chair at her head for not praising him outright. Anytime Priscilla displays an ounce of autonomy, Elvis is quick to check her.