For some, the legend of Elvis Presley remains an inexhaustible source of fascination, while others might feel that two major cinematic takes within two years is more than enough. Regardless, it’s notable that significant big-screen explorations of Elvis’s story have surged in the 21st century. In 2022, Austin Butler captivated audiences as the magnetic center of Baz Luhrmann’s vibrant spectacle, Elvis. Following closely, Sofia Coppola’s 2023 film Priscilla shifts the focus to the woman who became his wife, Priscilla Beaulieu, portrayed with exceptional grace by Cailee Spaeny. In this narrative, Elvis, played by Australian actor Jacob Elordi, serves her story. Yet, the essence of the man resonates in both performances. Butler and Elordi, through their distinct characterizations, surprisingly harmonize in their quest to capture the truth of a perpetually enigmatic figure.
Context: Elvis Returns to the Big Screen
With Priscilla arriving roughly a year after Luhrmann’s Elvis, Coppola offers, perhaps unintentionally, a cinematic counterpart—akin to an “answer song” popular in mid-to-late 20th-century music, where one work responds to another. Think Joni Mitchell’s hopeful “The Circle Game” replying to Neil Young’s melancholic “Sugar Mountain.” While Elvis has been portrayed on screen before – notably Kurt Russell channeling the King’s energy in the 1979 TV movie Elvis, Val Kilmer’s brief appearance in 1993’s True Romance, and Michael Shannon’s quirky take in 2016’s Elvis & Nixon – the combination of Butler and Elordi brings audiences closer to understanding Elvis the man, complete with his flaws. These back-to-back films create a unique moment, allowing two distinct cinematic Elvises to seemingly communicate across different narratives.
Austin Butler embodying Elvis Presley’s charismatic stage presence in Baz Luhrmann’s film ‘Elvis’.
Austin Butler’s Elvis: The Theatrical King
In many ways, Austin Butler’s portrayal in Elvis captures the more performative aspect of the icon. Throughout much of Luhrmann’s film, he embodies a swaggering deity, seizing every opportunity. We see him first as an ambitious youth, confident yet nervous, drawing stares and jeers. The film depicts his entanglement with the possessive Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks, whose performance drew attention for its accent but arguably captured Parker’s calculating nature). When Butler’s Elvis first takes the stage in a striking pink suit, his shimmying performance is met with adoration, which he absorbs with a mixture of gratitude and ambition reflected in his glittering eyes. He knows they love him, and he embraces it fully.
Butler’s interpretation emphasizes the theatrical Elvis, the man so consumed by performance that the line between the entertainer and the individual blurred. This is partly by Luhrmann’s design, as Elvis charts the star’s meteoric and ultimately tragic career arc. Even his relationship with Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge), who was significantly younger when they met, is depicted almost as a partnership between shrewd equals, marching through a flashy Las Vegas montage with triumphant smiles.
However, Elvis also rightly presents its subject as a victim alongside the king. Parker exploits him emotionally and financially. Butler, possessing features reminiscent of the real Elvis’s youthful bloom, navigates much of the film with the air of a wounded monarch. His emotional depth is evident; following his mother Gladys’s death, he collapses in her closet, seeking solace in the lingering scent of her clothes. One of Butler’s most poignant moments occurs when Priscilla leaves him. Drugged and desperate, he pleads with her not to go, slumping onto the Graceland stairs in his silk robe, a picture of broken vulnerability. Butler uses body language masterfully here, showing an Elvis folding inward, seemingly abandoning his last connection to reality.
Jacob Elordi’s Elvis: Through Priscilla’s Eyes
Both Elvis and Priscilla present their subject through a specific lens rather than direct omniscience. Luhrmann uses Colonel Parker as the narrator, framing Elvis through the eyes of the man who both made and broke him. In Priscilla, the focus shifts entirely: Elvis is viewed through Priscilla’s experience. This suggests that Elvis, like a solar eclipse, might be too overwhelming to observe without a filter.
Coppola’s film, based on Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, finally gives Priscilla’s perspective a significant cinematic voice (beyond a 1988 TV movie). Spaeny’s portrayal of Priscilla, from a 14-year-old schoolgirl smitten with a star to the 27-year-old woman who leaves him, is remarkable for its dignity and refusal to paint her solely as a victim. Even as a teenager under Elvis’s spell, her determination is clear. When her mother suggests dating boys her own age, Spaeny’s Priscilla dismisses the idea with a single glance – her mind is set on Elvis.
Jacob Elordi as Elvis Presley and Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla Beaulieu in a scene from Sofia Coppola’s ‘Priscilla’.
The Elvis we encounter in Priscilla, played by Jacob Elordi, is chronologically close to the grieving son seen in Luhrmann’s film, shortly after his mother’s death. Stationed in Germany, he meets Priscilla, also displaced due to her father’s military service. Elordi’s Elvis greets the young Priscilla not with predatory assessment, but with a kind of curious wonder. Their initial connection stems from shared loneliness and dislocation. Elvis is still raw from his mother’s passing, and Priscilla, possessing an innate wisdom, responds not just to the star, but to a person in need.
Elordi captures this raw neediness, but the film also reveals how this vulnerability could become a tool for manipulation and deceit. When Elvis returns to the US and rumors of affairs with co-stars reach Priscilla, his phoned-in excuses are thin lies she accepts despite her dissatisfaction. This highlights another truth: alongside his sensitivity, Elvis was a master manipulator, shaping his life precisely as he desired. His insistence that Priscilla dye her hair black and adopt heavy eyeliner—making her look more like him—is subtly chilling. While drug use likely exacerbated his behavior, it may also have been part of his inherent nature. Despite those who knew him describing his generosity and good upbringing, and Priscilla herself calling him the love of her life, this darker aspect is present.
Cailee Spaeny portraying Priscilla Presley with thoughtful expression in the film ‘Priscilla’.
Elordi’s performance distinctly captures Elvis’s shadowy side and capacity for unintentional cruelty, particularly during a period of waning popularity reflected in the film’s timeline. He made movies he disliked, overshadowed for a time by the Beatles’ rise, before his 1968 comeback special and subsequent Vegas dominance. Elordi portrays this Elvis with muted anguish; his suffering is internal. Often speaking in a low mumble, Elordi conveys not just an imitation of Elvis’s voice, but a manifestation of inner uncertainty. His presence feels almost like an absence, viewed through Priscilla’s eyes—he is the dream she lived with and ultimately walked away from.
Capturing Different Facets of a Complex Man
Ultimately, Jacob Elordi’s Elvis, viewed through Priscilla’s evolving perspective, becomes a living ghost—an indelible part of her life, representing both profound love and deep complication. Butler’s performance leans into the public persona, the dazzling stage presence and the pressures of fame, while Elordi delves into the private man, marked by vulnerability, neediness, and manipulation, all filtered through the lens of the woman closest to him.
Conclusion
The recent cinematic explorations of Elvis Presley, spearheaded by Austin Butler in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and Jacob Elordi in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, offer compellingly different yet strangely harmonious perspectives on the music icon. Butler embodies the electrifying performer battling external pressures and internal demons within the grand arc of a superstar’s career. Elordi, seen through the intimate gaze of Priscilla, reveals a more subdued, vulnerable, and sometimes unsettlingly manipulative man navigating personal turmoil and relationship complexities. Together, these portrayals don’t offer a single definitive Elvis, but rather enrich our understanding by illuminating different facets of his enduringly complex and mysterious legacy. They provide a nuanced look at the King, satisfying the curiosity about his life reignited by these powerful recent films.
