Considered one of the most iconic aspects of Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut, the predominant pink hue of each of the Lisbon sisters’ rooms in The Virgin Suicides (2000) underscores the vulnerable intensity of girlhood. The pastel wallpapers, messy four-poster beds, and eclectic collections of posters are central to how the sisters inhabit their own teen-girl fantasies while living inside a simultaneously suffocating house.
Twenty-three years later, Coppola uses the same visual cues to paint a similar picture in Priscilla (2023). Priscilla Beaulieu’s bedroom is used to externalise her youthfulness and perceived innocence, contrasting the inky, dark room she eventually occupies with Elvis in Graceland. Much like in The Virgin Suicides, the bedroom serves to communicate her feelings of being barred from the rest of the world.
Coppola’s debut and latest film are both demonstrative of the way in which she has become synonymous with a certain aesthetic – waifish teenage girls wearing gauzy prairie dresses living in American suburbia. Thematically, her work reflects almost exclusively the female experience, focusing on themes of femininity, adolescence and existential yearning. Such thorough explorations of womanhood have set her far apart from her nepo-baby legacy, a feat few have managed to achieve.
At its core, Priscilla shares all of the same strengths as The Virgin Suicides — complex female characters, stylised cinematography and a consistent understanding of the source material provided (which, in light of Emerald Fennel’s recent Wuthering Heights adaptation, is perhaps as important as ever). However, while they both share the same key strengths, they also share the same weakness — an apparent lack of diversity.
Thematically, Coppola sticks to what she knows. Both The Virgin Suicides and Priscilla revolve around rich, young, white girls who grow up in a way that likely resembles Coppola’s upbringing. Her films have very few characters who are ethnic minorities, as can be seen in Priscilla, which features a single significant black character — Elvis’ housekeeper. The use of a wealthy suburban setting in The Virgin Suicides is similarly void of any true representation. Historically, the suburban areas represented in the film experienced social injustice in the United States following the racially charged Detroit Riots in the 1960s. This absence of racial and socioeconomic diversity ultimately narrows Coppola’s storytelling, reinforcing a limited understanding of girlhood, one that only exists with whiteness and privilege.
Sofia Coppola undeniably ventures no further than her inner world. While this has obvious major drawbacks, it has led to clear progress in exploring the female experience. Her plots over the years have only grown in emotional depth, as well as her visuals, which remain forever distinctive to her. Priscilla seems like the culmination of years of hard work spent perfecting her girlhood aesthetic, framing adolescence through the same exclusive, curated interiors that define her filmography.
Photo by Valerie Enríquez on Openverse.