Elvis & Nixon
by Kathryn Loggins

Narrative  by Liza Johnson

In 1970 one of the most bizarre historical  encounters took place: a meeting between Elvis “The King” Presley and President  Richard Nixon. Why these two characters came together is still somewhat of a  mystery, but the result of the meeting is a photograph of the two men, which  has become the most requested photograph in the National Archives. Elvis & Nixon tells the  fictionalized version of this encounter in a superbly entertaining and funny  way. It’s hard to expect anything but magical, when you’ve got Michael Shannon (Elvis) and Kevin Spacey (Nixon) playing the title  roles and actors such as Johnny  Knoxville and Colin Hanks supporting them.  And it truly is an  entertaining and wild ride that culminates to the encounter itself, which lets  the audience become immersed in what might have happened behind those closed  doors. Shannon and Spacey do an excellent job of bringing these characters to  life, without doing an impersonation. In an interview with Tribeca Film,  Shannon states, “Elvis did a lot  of mysterious things. This meeting [with Nixon] was a very mysterious thing. […]  So it was one of our main concerns to unravel those mysteries and take Elvis  seriously.” And while the actors and director succeeded in making these  characters truthful and believable, the audience still gets to laugh a lot as  the story unfolds.