Review of Elvis & Nixon (2016) by Eddie K — 16 Feb 2017

Despite the fact that I am decidedly not a fan of either of these men, the story of a meeting between two very different people who found out they maybe weren't so different is really quite charming. The fact that it's based on an absurd true story only adds to the quirky charm of this whole thing. It's a ridiculous story and the movie knows how ridiculous it is, but it plays it in a subtle and genuine way that made the dry but ridiculous humor really work. There isn't a whole lot to this movie, and it has somewhat of a sitcom feel to it, but it really works and there are a couple of really genuine moments. I really liked the moments between Elvis and his best friend Jerry, where Elvis talks about how people see him as a thing more than a person and Jerry talks about what it's like to have your best friend cast such a massive shadow over you. It was really intriguing stuff that added a lot of heart to the movie, but didn't overshadow the focus of the movie. Kevin Spacey as Nixon and Michael Shannon as Elvis did a great job. There was never really that point that I forgot I was seeing someone else play these people (like with Julianne Moore in Game Change), but they really do dissolve into them better than I expected. Spacey really captures the attitude and mannerisms of Nixon to an eerie degree, and Michael Shannon's one of those actors who I swear never knows he's being filmed. I think they just found Shannon cosplaying as Elvis and just followed him around with a camera, he's clearly having a lot of fun.

I wanted to see this movie because I wanted to know more about this absurd true story, and get a glimpse (albeit an embellished fictional one) at what that meeting might have looked like. What I got really surprised me. It has some genuine looks at fame and the connections between two very different people, but it also never loses sight of what it really is: a quirky movie about a ridiculous encounter with quite a few laugh-out-loud moments. I can't really call it a great movie, it's nothing epic or life-changing. But as a little story about a small strange moment in history I really enjoyed it.