Every director has a signature style: Quentin Tarantino favours a pop culture-saturated bloodbath; Peter Jackson loves an epic fantastical tapestry; Tim Burton has trademarked an almost cartoonish gothic style; JJ Abrams is all about high-adrenaline mysteries (with lens flare); Christopher Nolan tends towards the darkly brooding.

All have one thing in common, however: their stories usually focus on oh-so-complex men.

And that’s why we love Sofia Coppola so very, very much. The celebrated director of The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette and Lost In Translation always shifts the narrative back onto women and their relationships – with their lovers, true, but also with one another. 

In fact, her films stand out as much for their predominantly female casts as they do for the dreamlike directorial style: her voyeuristic camerawork, her purposeful use of fashion and colour, her impossibly perfect soundtracks and scores, her beautifully textured aesthetic, and, above everything else, her delicacy in approaching her subject matter.

But as Coppola’s films have proven time and time again, this delicacy is just surface deep. Everything might look beautiful, everything might look perfect, but the director wastes no time in burrowing beneath the skin of her characters to expose their innermost truths. 

Their fears, their desires and their identities are laid bare as they attempt to discover what it means to be a woman in a world dominated by men. On what it means to exist in a world governed by harsh gender expectations. On the themes of feminine entrapment and escape. And the director’s latest film, Priscilla – due to be released in UK cinemas on 1 January – stays true to these concerns.

Already tipped to be a major contender on the 2024 awards circuit, Coppola’s faithful adaptation of Priscilla Presley’s memoir, Elvis & Me, takes us beyond the headlines and sidesteps the clichés we have been fed over the years about the iconic couple that cemented their status as something of American royalty.

Instead of the age-old fantasy about a global rock star swooping down to rescue a young woman from her ordinary life, the director offers up a new perspective on Elvis and Priscilla’s relationship – one which is subtly retold and re-examined from the perspective of the 14-year-old girl who unexpectedly found herself the object of the Burning Love star’s affections.

As you’d expect from Coppola, the film is a sumptuous feast for the eyes, with gorgeous attention to detail when it comes to the fashion and beauty trends of the period. The soundtrack, too, is as iconic as we’ve come to expect from the director, filled with gems from the period that perfectly score an innocent young girl’s dreamy fantasies about her celebrity crush. 

The events that Coppola presents without comment, however, are stark: the extraordinary Cailee Spaeny’s Priscilla is a sweet, trusting and naive child when we first meet her and she happily accepts an invite to Elvis’ house when he sends one of his friends to fetch her to him.

It’s not long before Priscilla becomes the “baby” of Elvis, who, played by Jacob Elordi, is every bit as strikingly handsome and charismatic as the real life King Of Rock’n’Roll. However, in this new context, he feels unexpectedly sinister and predatory. He lavishes attention on our young heroine that would, in a typical biopic, be interpreted as romantic, but under Coppola’s unflinching gaze could easily be viewed as love-bombing and grooming. 

Witnessing teenage Priscilla wake up in Elvis’s guest bedroom after sleeping in a drug-induced stupor for 48 hours underlines this depiction (although, as the film repeatedly emphasises, the singer did not have sex with the teenager until she was legally of age).

Priscilla slowly succumbs to a dreamlike state of existence, as her parents watch her gradual transformation with undisguised alarm. Why, they ask, can’t Elvis can’t find a woman his own age? Why their little girl? Their daughter, however, is quietly confident about her new role as Elvis’s beloved, insisting he needs her, and it’s not long before she finds herself living with him.

Or rather, living in his home. Because here’s the thing; instead of leaning into the glitz and glamour of the rock star’s public life, Coppola focuses her camera squarely on what happened behind closed doors. Particularly how Priscilla – like so many other women of her era – stayed dutifully at home waiting for the man in her life to return to her. 

Eventually, Graceland, despite all its luxuries and lavish trappings, became a sort of prison for the young woman who was ordered not to sit in the garden, or to bring friends round, or to get a little after-school job. 

On the way her wardrobe was governed by her husband and she was ordered to be sat waiting at the end of the phone, just in case he decided to call. Like a prize in a gilded cage that Elvis wanted to keep all to himself.

Again, Coppola presents all of the above without comment, simply recreating the events recorded in Priscilla Presley’s memoir. In doing so, she offers up an unsettling story via a uniquely feminine gaze. 

It allows the harsh reality of Priscilla’s life to cut through the sugary pastels and beautiful psychedelia like a knife, reminding us sharply not just of the age gap between the couple, but also of the immense power imbalance between them. And, while there is clearly a very genuine love at play here, too, you’ll breathe a heartfelt sigh of relief when Priscilla finally finds her footing as a woman of her own making.

Still, it’s a happier ending than we’re used to seeing from Coppola; the last shot of Marie Antoinette lingered on the destruction strewn throughout the Palace of Versailles, reminding us that she and her children failed to make it out of France alive. 

The Virgin Suicides, too, leaves us with five dead girls and the unsolvable mystery of the Lisbon sisters. And The Beguiled, despite allowing its female protagonists to survive their encounter with a handsome Union soldier, still sees them irreparably damaged by his presence. Priscilla gives us, at last, a bird who manages to finally break free of her cage.

Perhaps this film hits differently because, in spite of everything, Priscilla is Coppola’s most relatable story. After all, it’s a tale of feminine vulnerability – of changing yourself for someone, losing yourself entirely in a relationship and finding yourself all over again. It’s a reminder, too, that a relationship doesn’t have to be everlasting to have a happy ending. Sometimes, that blissful ever after can be found in admitting that you’ve outgrown something or that you deserve more.

The beautifully accurate adaptation of Priscilla Presley’s Elvis & Me is a must for your New Year watchlist. 

Priscilla is released in UK cinemas nationwide from January 1 2024.