Opinion: The moment ‘Priscilla’ became a horror movie for me

Opinion by Sara Stewart

(CNN) — The moment “Priscilla” turned into a horror movie for me, was when Jacob Elordi’s Elvis Presley gave a sleeping pill to his new, much-younger girlfriend (portrayed by Cailee Spaeny), leaving her out cold for two days. Two days. But in truth, it’s upsetting right from the jump, when the baby-faced 14-year-old doing her homework at a diner is selected, by a grown man, to go to a party with Presley.

In the hands of director Sofia Coppola, the story of Priscilla Presley walks a deceptively candy-colored line, charting the course of one of rock’s most famous marriages and in the process, exposing the myths fueling America’s deeply misogynist history of male rock stardom. Its aesthetic is pure Coppola, a hazy wash of retro hues and closing-in walls.

Here, Presley’s Memphis home of Graceland is the prison, and there are few scenes that don’t include a cut to closed curtains or covered windows, visual shorthand emphasizing ways in which Priscilla’s being cut off from the world by Elvis, his family and his entourage. (Its claustrophobic ambiance and vulnerable, conflicted female lead reminded me deeply of Kristen Stewart’s performance as Princess Diana in 2021’s psychological drama “Spencer.”)

It’s a radically different look at the Presley legend than Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 rock musical “Elvis,” not to mention the whole of Elvis’ foundational place in Americana. By dissecting the other side of this vastly imbalanced marriage, “Priscilla” invites its viewers to reevaluate a conventional image of the rock legend.

This call to reexamine our icons isn’t limited to rock, of course; the newly-released book “The Darcy Myth” explores the ways in which romantic fiction has contributed to creating a deeply harmful cultural notion that “bad boys” — à la the brooding, cranky Mr. Darcy of “Pride & Prejudice” — represent the path to true love. “If we are trained from childhood to invest ourselves in men who treat us poorly,” author Rachel Feder writes, “aren’t we more likely to end up in abusive situations and under threat of assault?”

In “Priscilla,” Elvis tells his eager young paramour she can’t leave Graceland because she has to “keep the home fires burning” while he’s away on set. That well-worn phrase is shorthand for so much of what’s chilling about “Priscilla” and the way it encapsulates the role that women have long played as spouses, partners and playthings of famous men. (The movie does depict Elvis and Priscilla, per her memoir, as waiting until she was 21 to have sex.)

It helps that Priscilla Presley herself was involved as an executive producer on “Priscilla,” which was adapted from her memoir, “Elvis and Me.” She’s said that despite some worries, she’s been happy with the way the film turned out — even if her late daughter, Lisa Marie, was not. Lisa Marie died before seeing the film, but according to Variety, she sent emails to Coppola objecting to the script’s portrayal of her father; she called the script “shockingly vengeful and contemptuous.” “I think it’s right on, to be honest with you,” Priscilla said at a Q&A about the film last Friday.

Coppola, whose filmography (“The Virgin Suicides,” “Marie Antoinette,” “Lost in Translation”) has always leaned into the magic of teenage girlhood, captures Priscilla’s thrill of being anointed by the already-reigning king of rock and roll. But that dream morphs into a nightmare as Elvis tells her what she’s allowed to wear, what shade to dye her hair, how to apply her makeup. She can’t take a job or have friends; her only occupation is waiting for Elvis when he’s ready to spend time with her (and, eventually, their daughter Lisa Marie), despite the fact that he’s often on tour or on movie sets and entangled in affairs. In a rage, he throws a chair in her direction at one point; at another, he attacks her in what seems to be a sexual assault she’s barely able to fend off.

Through it all, Spaeny, who won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival, continues to look heartbreakingly young; even at the worst of times, her face radiates hope that she might get the teen-idol fantasy back. It’s a velvet-glove treatment of one of the most pervasive, toxic undercurrents in entertainment —  the fetishization and abuse of girls and women, but particularly underage girls, who’ve been the subject of countless rock and rap songs and the partners (if that term even makes sense) to a long list of rock’s most famous men.

Until the last decade or so, the assumption has been that young women will gladly sacrifice their own independence and lives and goals as a Faustian bargain for partnership with a famous man. The way that bargain looks has changed over the years, but through it all runs the same obsession with youth. The 2021 BBC documentary “Look Away” chronicled the evolution of that toxicity into the 1970s and 1980s, a time when sexual abuse of often-underage “groupies” was rampant, as was the abuse of women who were working in the industry themselves and there were few repercussions for perpetrators.

It’s tempting to think #MeToo helped to eradicate this mindset. It has definitely led to some sea changes: In recent years, high-profile lawsuits alleging sexual assaults of minors have been filed against multiple music legends. In 2018, Kesha stood onstage at the Grammys with the likes of Cyndi Lauper, Andra Day and Camilla Cabello to perform her song “Praying,” dedicated to survivors of assault. R. Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges, including of the late singer Aaliyah, who appeared in the case as Jane Doe 1.

And yet, much of our rock hero worship continues relatively unexamined. Led Zeppelin guitarist and co-founder Jimmy Page just got a rapturous reception at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when he showed up to induct Link Wray. “In those days, there were many guitar instrumentals, but as a 14 year-old kid who could barely play the guitar, it really had an effect on me,” Page said of Wray’s playing. Reading that quote, I couldn’t help thinking of how a younger Page made off with the 14-year-old Lori Maddox (also spelled Mattix), who has described being kept at a hotel (she says had already lost her virginity to David Bowie the same year) and how she says her mother went along with it, saying that her daughter was “like Priscilla [Presley].” (Neither Page nor Bowie, who died in 2016, commented on the relationships.)

“Priscilla” is a nuanced step forward in this discussion. Despite all its deeply unsettling moments, Spaeny and Elordi have called the film a celebration of true love. “There was real love there and she looks back on this time very fondly. She says, you know, that was the love of her life,” Spaeny, who spent time with the real Priscilla, said. That might be the bleakest revelation of all.

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