MOVIE REVIEW
“Elvis & Nixon”
Grade: B
Starring Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey. Directed by Liza Johnson.
Rated R for some language. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 27 minutes.
Bottom line: Partly based on historical records, but exaggerated and invented
Knowing in advance that the new film “Elvis & Nixon” is only yea-big, and that it’s not intended to carry the usual biopic baggage, its particular charms are disarming nonetheless.
Mainly it’s fun. It’s fun to watch Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey do their thing without settling for impressions or impersonations. In the grand tradition of first-rate actors actually acting, Shannon and Spacey evoke and explore, rather than replicate. In a wryly comic but unshticky vein, they imagine for us what the two most disparate Americans in American history were like behind closed doors, and why they may have found some common ground, if only fleetingly, as increasingly isolated titans in their respective realms of performance.
The photo and the meeting inspiring director Liza Johnson’s pocket-sized film have become the stuff of unlikely historical legend. On Dec. 21, 1970, Elvis Presley, the king of more than mere jumpsuits, was granted a sit-down with President Richard M. Nixon in the Oval Office. Presley’s semi-legible letters to the president, hand-delivered to the White House security guards, stated his reasons for the meeting: to offer his services to his country as an undercover federal agent “at large,” perhaps to intercept drug deals, or bust up a Black Panthers meeting, or whatever needed doing.
Nixon didn’t leap at the chance. But key aides were tickled by the idea, because — who knows? — it might help him with “the youth vote.” So they met. Presley brought a gift: an antique Colt .45 pistol, handsomely mounted in a display case. They spoke of anti-American sentiments afoot in their nation, and family matters, and at one point Nixon asked for an autograph for “my Julie,” his daughter. The White House photographer captured the famous handshake. And then it was over.
The script devotes much, but not all, of the movie to the meeting itself. This is where you really see what these actors can do. It’s a play, essentially: a two-character, one-act play, partly based on the historical record but largely invented, and that’s fine with me. Shannon’s Presley gets just enough of the swagger and strut and soft-spoken quality down pat to let you forget the ways he doesn’t resemble Elvis.
Spacey is a canny impressionist and he’s usually asked to toss off a few bits of celebrity mimicry every time he’s on “Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.” He’s coming at this assignment from his own direction, meeting Shannon, who’s coming from the other direction, in the middle. It works; Spacey’s Nixon voice is exact but lightly worn, which allows us to absorb how much of the classically uncomfortable Nixon body language the actor nails.
It’s a small film, perhaps less ambitious or probing (even in a comic vein) than it might’ve been. But it’s a good one, and the actors go to town without turning “Elvis & Nixon” into a chance meeting between an Elvis impersonator and Rich Little.
