Lisa Marie Presley Ripped Into Sofia Coppola's Elvis Portrayal In Priscilla

Sofia Coppola's new film "Priscilla" is a biography of Priscilla Presley, based on her own 1985 book "Elvis & Me," which she wrote with Sandra Harmon. Cailee Spaeny plays Priscilla, while Jacob Elordi plays Elvis Presley, the rock star to whom she was married from 1967 to 1973. Infamously, the pair began dating when Priscilla was 14 years old and Elvis was 24. According to /Film's review of "Priscilla," written by Shae Sennett, Coppola is careful to both celebrate their romance while also criticizing Elvis' lascivious behavior. The film seems to look at the high-profile romance between Elvis and Priscilla with extreme ambivalence, incorporating both the exhilaration of dating a handsome rock star at age 14, while acknowledging the unsavory age gap between the two and the demands on Priscilla Presley to maintain a particular public image. 

The criticism of Elvis was not taken very well by the late Lisa Marie Presley, Priscilla and Elvis' daughter who passed away in January at the age of 54. According to Variety, Lisa Marie was displeased with Coppola's depiction of her father, even if it was ostensibly taken from Priscilla's own autobiography. Four months before Lisa Marie's death, she and Coppola exchanged several e-mails wherein Presley expressed trepidation over Coppola's script. Lisa Marie felt that the intended depiction of Elvis would cause a large amount of public embarrassment for her and for her family. 

Lisa Marie already had a strained relationship with her mother and had recently lost her own son, Benjamin Keough, in 2020. Benjamin was only 27 and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Lisa Marie didn't like Coppola's depiction of her parents, and called Coppola's script "shockingly vengeful and contemptuous," and made sure her disapproval was a matter of record. 

In one of Lisa Marie's e-mails she wrote to Coppola, she said: 

"My father only comes across as a predator and manipulative. As his daughter, I don't read this and see any of my father in this character. I don't read this and see my mother's perspective of my father. I read this and see your shockingly vengeful and contemptuous perspective and I don't understand why?"

Coppola hadn't yet begun filming "Priscilla" at this point, but Variety points out that the filmmaker had already received the approval of Priscilla herself, who credited on the film as an executive producer. Lisa Marie, then, was put in the difficult position of decrying not only the film, but Coppola and her mother by extension. Lisa Marie also wrote that she "will be forced to be in a position where I will have to openly say how I feel about the film and go against you, my mother and this film publicly."

In response, Coppola tried to assure Lisa Marie that she ought to wait until "Priscilla" was actually made. Lisa Marie's objections were only to the script, and the director asked that judgment be withheld until the final edit was complete. "I hope that when you see the final film," Coppola wrote, "you will feel differently, and understand I'm taking great care in honoring your mother, while also presenting your father with sensitivity and complexity." Variety pointed out that Coppola was not authoring a hit piece, but a love story from Priscilla's perspective. It was also reported that the script Lisa Marie read wasn't even a final draft. The shooting script was about 10 pages shorter.

Sadly, Lisa Marie suffered a heart attack and died before the film was complete.

Lisa Marie Presley and Sofia Coppola also had something in common, in that they are both daughters of celebrities. Sofia Coppola's father, Francis Ford Coppola, was one of the most celebrated film directors of the 1970s, having made hit dramas like "The Conversation," "The Godfather," and "Apocalypse Now." The daughter of Elvis Presley felt she could appeal to Sofia on that shared experience, and express trepidation that her mom may not be as aware of the nuances that Coppola intended. Lisa Marie also wrote in her e-mail:

"I am worried that my mother isn't seeing the nuance here or realizing the way in which Elvis will be perceived when this movie comes out. [...] I feel protective over my mother who has spent her whole life elevating my father's legacy. I am worried she doesn't understand the intentions behind this film or the outcome it will have. [...] I would think of all people that you would understand how this would feel. [...] Why are you coming for my Dad and my family?"

Lisa Marie did approve of Baz Luhrmann's 2022 film "Elvis," a hyper-stylized biography of her father that depicted him as sympathetic and horrendously manipulated by the villainous Colonel Tom Parker, the man's handler for many years. She called Luhrmann's film "a break from suffering and a ray of light that hit us last year," and didn't understand why Coppola's film had to be so jaded. 

Coppola herself answered this in a recent interview with Vanity Fair, explaining, "I really didn't wanna just make another conventional biopic. I really wanted to capture how overwhelming that brush with first love is and how confusing it can be trying to understand a man who's so hot and cold."

"Priscilla" is playing in theaters now.