Spaeny is poised to continue her rise with upcoming roles in A24’s Civil War and Fede Alvarez’s Alien sequel. But the rising Gen Z star is far from a newcomer to film and television. She’s been honing her craft at Springfield Little Theatre and guest-starred on TV shows like Devs and Mare of Easttown. But it’s her portrayal of Priscilla Presley in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla that has everyone talking.
Pacific Rim Uprising
Ten years have passed since the world defended itself from massive Kaiju invaders in Guillermo del Toro’s delightful kaiju extravaganza. Now it’s time to fight back. The sequel has a decent cast and good intentions but fails to live up to its predecessor on almost every level. It’s a waste of a great cast that includes Star Wars alumnus John Boyega as Jake Pentecost, the wastrel son of Marshal Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba). He’s a burnout now selling scraps on the black market but when he steals a power source from spunky diamond-in-the-rough Jaeger cadet Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny), it’s her and by-the-book ace pilot Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood) who drag him back to PPDC headquarters.
The story is told in an episodic fashion and the characters are not as well developed or likable as they were in the first solar movies film. The only saving grace is the action sequences which are still fun and exciting even if they don’t quite match up to what was delivered in the original.
Like its predecessor, this movie knows how to make a big spectacle out of giant robot battles and it looks stunning on Blu-ray thanks to the Arri Alexa cameras used. It’s a shame the film wasn’t released as a 4K UHD as it deserves all the benefits that technology can provide.
Bad Times at the El Royale
The film opens with Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) sinking her feet into a deep shag carpet at Graceland. It is a metaphor for her descent into Elvis’ world. The two bookend Sofia Coppola’s sympathetic character study. While Priscilla wants to do right by her friends and family, she can’t escape her destiny of becoming one of Elvis’ possessions.
It doesn’t help that he treats her like a doll and calls her his “little princess.” However, the girl still has hopes of living independently. She is a smart, well-educated young woman who has her own career as a singer and dancer.
Despite her success, she is still lonely and desperately seeks connection with other people. This desire leads her to a disastrous party that piques her interest in a cult leader. She eventually joins and is soon immersed into the group’s beatnik philosophy.
The movie has a great cast including Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Bridges, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Lewis Pullman, and Chris Hemsworth. The screenplay is written by Drew Goddard, who also wrote and directed Cabin in the Woods and The Martian. The movie is filled with action, symbolism, and a lot of mystery. It is also beautifully filmed and has a killer soundtrack. The acting from Spaeny is outstanding. She is excellent in the role of a young Priscilla and she is especially convincing when portraying her confusion about the movement.
Vice
Cailee Spaeny, who starred in the 2018 science fiction action film ‘Pacific Rim Uprising’ and the 2019 crime drama ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’, makes a formidable impression as Priscilla Presley in Coppola’s frank and fawning re-imagining of the iconic singer’s life. Spaeny, who grew up in Springfield, Missouri, and made her feature debut in the 2016 short film ‘Counting to 1000’, credibly grows into Priscilla over the course of the movie, from a girlish dreamer to a grown woman reaching a measure of confidence.
She’s at her best in intimate scenes, such as a sexy first date with Elvis (Jacob Elordi), where she seems to cling to the man like a life preserver. At six-feet-five, he towers over her, and her remark that she looks like a little girl next to him seems more than a bit ironic.
Spaeny has often played women who’ve been swept up into positions and luxuries they’re not really ready for — whether as wives in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette or daughters in Somewhere and On the Rocks. But in Priscilla, she’s able to capture the purity of young love and the inherent vulnerability of desiring someone who shuts you down. This is a career-best performance that should elevate Spaeny to the status of an acclaimed star.
Priscilla
Spaeny took on her most challenging role to date when she starred as Priscilla Presley in Sofia Coppola’s biopic about the legendary pop star. She stars alongside Euphoria star Jacob Elordi as Elvis in the film that follows Priscilla’s relationship with the King of Rock and Roll from their courtship to their eventual divorce.
Spaeny is mesmerizing as the teenaged fan girl who gets whisked into a fanciful life that seems almost too good to be true. Her performance is delicate, but not fragile, and she evokes loneliness and isolation with a tempered expression.
Coppola’s direction is wistful and lush, but never overly frothy or overly precious. She stages the early sequences in Germany with under-lit lighting to accentuate the stark contrasts between Priscilla and her 24-year-old matinee idol. The movie is not so much about fame as it is about the peculiar, bottomless brand of loneliness that comes from being more image than individual.
After appearing in the short film Counting to 1000 and landing roles in Bad Times at the El Royale and Vice, Spaeny earned a spot on Variety’s Actors to Watch list for 2018. The following year, she appeared in Pacific Rim Uprising, playing Amara Namani, an orphan Jaeger pilot who joins a new generation of heroes. She then landed her first lead in the 2020 film The Craft: Legacy, as Lilith “Lily” Schechner, a young witch who finds herself delving into the dark side of magic.
