The spectacle of Presley visiting Nixon's buttoned-down White House in his jeweled sunglasses, silk scarf, open shirt, and giant gold belt is inherently farcical, but Elvis & Nixon might have delivered more than dumb laughs.
Elvis & Nixon
On December 21st, 1970, two of America's greatest recording artists met for the first time.
2016 · 1h 26m · R
Comedy, Drama, History
Directed by
Liza Johnson
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Elvis & Nixon
Overview
In 1970, a few days before Christmas, Elvis Presley showed up on the White House lawn seeking to be deputized into the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs by the President himself.
Director and cast
- Liza Johnson Director
- Kevin Spacey as Richard Nixon
- Michael Shannon as Elvis Presley
- Alex Pettyfer as Jerry Schilling
- Johnny Knoxville as Sonny
- Colin Hanks as Egil Krogh
- Evan Peters as Dwight Chapin
- Tate Donovan as H.R. Haldeman
- Sky Ferreira as Charlotte
- Tracy Letts as John Finlator
- Ahna O'Reilly as Mary Anne Peterson
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
The dialogue sparkles with gems of historical allusion and perceptive asides, and the actors virtually sing it; the film plays like a whirling sociopolitical operetta.
As a surreal slice of history served up nearly half a century later, it feels oddly satisfying: A reminder not just of simpler times, but of all the other wild untold stories we may never know, just because no camera was there to capture them.
What the movie, directed by Liza Johnson, lacks in factual material it replaces with whimsy and quirky humour, helped greatly by the casting of Michael Shannon as Presley and Kevin Spacey as Nixon.
A sharper movie would have pushed this bizarre incident into psychological rawness, revealing a shared sense of paranoia. Breezy, comic and disposable, Elvis & Nixon is not that film.
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