A storm is brewing across the Elvis Presley fandom, and it centers on none other than the King of Rock and Roll’s own granddaughter, Riley Keough. In a release that has sent shockwaves through loyal preservationists, Keough debuted an intimate black-and-white short documentary titled In Process: Riley Keough. What makes this six-and-a-half-minute film so polarizing is not its artistic premise, but its unprecedented setting: it was filmed directly inside Graceland, utilizing almost every sacred room and corner of the legendary estate.
For decades, Graceland has been maintained with near-religious reverence. Hundreds of thousands of tourists pass through each year behind strictly enforced velvet ropes, forbidden from touching the furniture, let alone lounging on it. Yet, In Process tears that boundary down entirely. The film features Keough alongside actors and models casually taking over the estate—holding backyard picnics, throwing poolside parties, and even bringing drinks down into the historic basement pool room where guests play at the King’s original pool table.
Outrage Among Preservationists: “It’s Not a Film Set”
The reaction from some corners of the fanbase was immediate and furious. For tourists who treated Graceland as a frozen-in-time sanctuary, watching modern actors treat the museum like a playground felt reckless.
One upset fan remarked: “I was bothered to see these actor models all up on everything. Was at Graceland last month and the reverence to all these rooms and places is astounding. So seeing these people on the couches and in the pool and actually pretend living is so crazy to me.”
Another viewer voiced genuine anxiety over the priceless artifacts inside the mansion: “Anybody else get a bit nervous when people were using the pool table and drinking in the pool room, too? I thought, ‘OMG, what if they rip the pool table even more and what if they spill something?’ Everything in Graceland is an artifact that can’t be replaced.”
A Granddaughter’s Defense: “It Did Not Feel Like a Museum to Us”
Despite the pushback, a powerful counter-wave of fans has rallied behind Keough, defending her legal and personal right to the space. Inherited after the tragic passing of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, Graceland is Keough’s ancestral home. Lisa Marie herself frequently held private holiday celebrations inside the house, maintaining its heartbeat as a living residence rather than a tomb.
For Keough—who co-wrote Lisa Marie’s memoir From Here to the Great Unknown and helmed the award-winning feature War Pony—the house represents family, memory, and roots. Addressing her childhood perspective, Keough explained:
“I think growing up and having family-like dinners and stuff in the house, having Southern food in the dining room… the house felt very full of family and cousins running around and did not feel like a museum, you know. It did have that family home feeling for us. The world wasn’t imagined. It’s the world I grew up in.”
Throughout the short film, Keough weaves deeply personal visual homages to her lineage:
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The Living Room & Jungle Room: Keough recreates the famous pose of Elvis and Priscilla in the living room, and steps beyond tourist boundaries into the Jungle Room’s hidden sundeck staircase.
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Gladys and Vernon’s Bedroom: A sequence shows Keough resting on the bed in her great-grandparents’ room—reminiscent of famous 1950s portraits of Elvis—surrounded by vintage teddy bears reminiscent of the ones Elvis posed with on Graceland’s entrance stairs, mirroring a 2012 shoot Lisa Marie staged for her album Storm & Grace.
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The Velvet Rope Metaphor: In a poignant final scene, Keough remains seated inside the bedroom while staff pull the velvet rope across the doorway to admit public tours, perfectly encapsulating her surreal dual reality as both heir and spectator.
Resilience and the Road to the 50th Anniversary
The documentary premiered during a special Tribeca Film Festival showcase supporting women filmmakers. Speaking with Vanity Fair, Keough reflected on the creative pressures she faces: “As a woman, there is this pressure feeling of ‘I can’t mess up. I can’t make a movie.’ But I think that for me, I can’t live like that… I think that’s a great talent actually to be able to be okay with failing, messing up, and not being perfect.”
Keough’s artistic boldness comes after an intensely turbulent period as sole trustee. In recent years, she fiercely guarded the estate against high-profile criminal adversity, notably thwarting a brazen scheme to force Graceland into foreclosure through mail fraud—a case that led to a guilty plea facing up to 20 years in prison.
Now, with the annual Elvis Week traditions underway and the landmark 50th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death rapidly approaching, Keough stands at the crossroads of preservation and personal expression. Whether her latest Graceland project is seen as an act of disrespect or a touching reclamation of home, one truth remains clear: Riley Keough is determined to keep Graceland alive, breathing, and unmistakably personal.