Elvis & Nixon

Without evidence, the legendary 1970 meeting between the King of rock ‘n’ roll and the President of the United States is based solely on a photograph that was not revealed until ’72 showing a smiling Nixon, hands clasped around the hand of a caped Elvis in the Oval Office. Director Liza Johnson’s film of historical speculation stretches out the brief encounter between the two men forged around their mutual concern for the direction the country was taking thanks to The Beatles and hippies. Watching protests and flag burning on TV, Elvis impulsively shows up at the White House north gate, attempting to gain admittance to deliver a letter he’s written offering his services as a secret undercover narcotics agent-at-large in order to infiltrate communes and rock bands that may be communist fronts. Nixon accepts the meeting at the urging of his staff in the hopes that it will soften his image with the college crowd and southern voters who love Elvis  As the King, Michael Shannon looks more like Lux Interior, while Kevin Spacey both sounds and looks like William Conrad as Cannon, adding to the overall puzzling hallucinatory happening!

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