Priscilla and Elvis Presley have long been heralded as one of the great celebrity romances, in spite of their divorce. Perhaps even, in part, because of their divorce; after all, the couple claimed to love one another long after they separated – with The King serenading his ex-wife with Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You as they left the divorce courts together.

As Sofia Coppola’s latest film, Priscilla, makes all too abundantly clear, the couple’s ‘great’ relationship is not one we should hold up as inspiration for our own romantic endeavours. Ever.

Billed as a faithful adaptation of Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir Elvis And Me, the film strips away the glamour we have come to associate with Elvis and his beautiful wife. Instead, it takes us back to a time before the dark eye make-up and big hair – and long before the mod-themed shift dresses, too. It takes us right back, in fact, to just before the couple’s first meeting in 1959, when Elvis, a 24-year-old rockstar, asks one of his married friends to approach a 14-year-old Priscilla and invite her to a party on his behalf. A fan of the singer – not to mention desperately bored and lonely living on the German military base – Priscilla accepts the invitation, despite her parents’ concerns. Indeed, the only reason they let their teenage daughter go along to meet Elvis in the first place is that they are promised by his aforementioned friend that Priscilla will be chaperoned by a married woman. And the rest, as they say, is history.

“Priscilla calls out the problematic celebrity relationships that have been accepted for far too long”