Mark Kermode reviews Priscilla - Kermode and Mayo's Take

Priscilla um this was doing 35 mil pre uh previews from the 26th and now in cinema so new film by Sophie Couer who is the director behind Virgin Suicides Mar Antoinette and much more this is based on the Memoir Elvis and Me by Priscilla presy who is also gets an executive producer credit and it follows the strange and often disturbing relationship between Priscilla who was I think 14 15 years old when she first met the superstar that was uh Elvis Presley took a shine to her through one of the you know So-Cal Memphis Mafia who was sent to invite her have a look at the clip Terry West what's her name see you coming here a lot is your family stationed here yes where you from Texas my dad just transferred here in August that's so how do you like Germany I booked the entertainment here my wife plays here sometimes neat you like Elvis Presley of course who doesn't I'm a friend of his my wife and I go to his house sometimes when he has people over he's always glad to see folks from back home we're going this weekend if you want to join have to ask my parents all right see you around so that's rising star Kelly spy who won a vulpi cup for best actress when the film premiered at Venice one of what vulpi v o LP I it's just the name of the particular award okay and then Jacob Eli who of course you will remember from uh saltburn you know the the main guy in saltburn yes who's well the main guy who isn't Barry kogen yes Barry kogen um he's uh Elvis which which is a kind of near impossible task to play Elvis in the wake of the performance by Austin Butler in who was so fantastic who was so fantastic in in in baz lerman's movie but actually I think Jacob Eli does a pretty good job so the thing is unlike the baz lurman uh biopic firstly this doesn't feature Elvis music this has got things like um well there's some anacronismo cover of baby I love you there's music from the French rock band Phoenix um has been married to Thomas M since 2011 and then stuff from Sons of Raphael and the heir of the film is mean you know the story of Priscilla and Elvis do you know the story yeah roughly I suppose okay so he met her when she was still at school and she then moved into graceand um in a platonic sense that she was you know shaper now you did a you did I did you know a in as yes so she she moved into she was basically she became the guardian she was Guardian at Graceland and then she ended up marrying Elvis but of course they their relationship was non-physical for you know until is that actually true it is actually true yes and in fact this is you know she she if you if you read Priscilla's account of it this is very very close to it there is a there's a strange thing which is almost like a kind of Gothic melodrama that she's moved into Graceland um which in which it's almost like she is preparing to become Elvis's bride Elvis meanwhile is I mean there's a touch you You' seen the Hitchcock Rebecca there's that weird that really weird thing about you like moving into a house in which the you're you're you're kind of a fish out of water and very very young and the strangeness of this life in which she goes to school by day she comes back she's Elvis's girlfriend but Elvis is out in the world you know having making headlines because of all these girls that he's being seen with so out in the world he's behaving like a kind of pop star and back at home he's behaving like a southern gentleman so he's a really really strange thing and I mean it it is strange and the what the movie does what the movie does in a very kind of non-judgmental way is flag up the weirdness of the situation that Priscilla bolo and then uh you know later Presley found herself in and I think that what's really interesting about it is that copela sort of finds a finds a way of telling that story without being in any way sensationalist without being in any way um overtly judgmental but allowing the audience to see this kind of I mean it is it's like a twisted fairy tale you're one of these people who everyone loves Elvis you said you everyone loves Elvis people are screaming about the idea of Elvis and then this idea that you go to school and everyone loves Elvis then you go back to graceand and you are Elvis's chosen one but Elvis is off around the world being Elvis and then there's this kind of really weird thing that as she grows up and she then you know marries Elvis and um they have a child and he sort of becomes he kind of if anything he regresses me the story of Elvis is that the more famous he became the more he kind of regressed into the surroundings of those around him I mean it because in in uh in Elvis the Bas lurman film it's really about him kind of sinking into the clutches of of Colonel Tom and Priscilla has always had this she mean she's been the kind of The Keeper of the flame she's the person who kind of you know managed the Elvis estate to what it is and she's a she's a a formidable character and I think that this does a very good job of telling her story in a way that there's no I mean there's just no getting around the weirdness of it I mean it is really really weird and peculiar I mean again you look at the story of Jerry Lee Lewis um which is even more weird and disturbing and I know everyone says okay well different times different places and there are different stories but essentially it is a story about a young girl being plucked from one world put into another world in which you know she on the one hand so you know cared for and looked after but there but there there's something very very strange going on and then as she sort of grows into herself the world around her doesn't grow with it it's kind of it's Melancholy it's sometimes it's it's kind of sweet it's very it's got a very delicate touch the film's got very very delicate touch and it it does a really impressive job of allowing the audience to to make make their own judgments about just how strange this is and it is there is no getting around the fact that there is there is a sort of sense of Gothic melodrama that it is there is a Rebecca thing going on there is a there it's you know like a Disney princess suddenly transported into the layer of you know you think of Beauty and the Beast or something like that and you have to keep reminding yourself no this is true this story is true and you know Elvis and Priscilla were together for a very long time and then and then they weren't um and she has always been considered by I mean you know Elvis fans holder in great reverence because she was the person who sort of you know took on the mantle of all that stuff but it's it is it's a I thought it was I I think it's a very fine film I think the performances are terrific I think it really captures the period well and I think that what jacobel Lordi does is keeps on the back foot so you're not getting that thing when Austin Butler is on in in Elvis every single scene he's lighting up the the screen you remember the scene when he plays at the Louisiana hay ride and it suddenly goes all Jimmy Hendrick and you you know you can't keep your eyes off him well in this you can and it's it's a quite a clever thing to do a performance of Elvis in which you are not the most interesting person in the frame the most interesting person in the frame is prisilla who doesn't say very much who quite often is being pushed to the sides of the Drama by this this whole kind of Machinery of stuff which is going on around Elvis and the family and graceand and the success and there is something really clever about making a film in which a sidelined character who whose narrative is quite genuinely sidelined is is the center of the story the more I think about it the more I think that Sophie coup has done a very very good job of telling this very complicated and often very very very disturbing story in a way that is just okay this and then this and then this and then this and then trusting the audience to find their own way through the emotional and philosophical and moral mindfield of what's playing out so big thumbs up then yeah I liked it I mean I I I I liked it very much and I was surprised because it's um it's there's something there is something so Artful about making an apparently sidelined character the center of the drama without giving them big speeches it's not to do with big it's to do with well it's to do with it's to do with with what you don't say rather than what you do say thanks very much for watching this video I hope you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed making it while you're here check out all the other videos cuz they're cool too aren't they they are and if you want to keep up to date with everything kerm Mayo take then check out our social channels I mean why wouldn't you I mean I I would but I have done excellent

Channel: Kermode and Mayo's Take

Views: 62,511

Keywords: Mark Kermode, Simon Mayo, Kermode and Mayo's Take, Film Review, TV Review

Id: TbMLKWt1uC4

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 29 2023