Four months before her death in January, Lisa Marie Presley objected to Sofia Coppola's film Priscilla, which depicts the relationship between her parents, Elvis and Priscilla Presley. In emails sent in September 2022, she accused Coppola of characterising Elvis as 'a predator and manipulative', describing the screenplay as 'shockingly vengeful and contemptuous'.
The film, adapted from Priscilla Presley's memoir Elvis and Me and executive produced by her, presents a more nuanced view. It begins in 1959 when Priscilla Beaulieu was 14 and Elvis 24, but stresses that he rebuffed her sexual advances until they married when she was 21. However, he controlled her life—dictating her hairstyle, clothing, and forbidding her from working—and gave her pep pills.
Critics are divided on whether the film depicts 'grooming'. Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair noted that the film 'calmly shows true events as they happened... letting the audience make assessments'. Meanwhile, Tara McNamara of Common Sense Media called it 'an unvarnished primer for what grooming looks like'. Neither suggests the caricature Lisa Marie feared.
Coppola wrote to Lisa Marie, expressing hope that seeing the final film would change her view, stating she took 'great care in honouring your mother, while also presenting your father with sensitivity and complexity'. The tragedy is that Lisa Marie never saw the completed film.
