Kevin Spacey and Michael Shannon star in this film documenting one of the most unusual meetings to take place in the White House.
The Guardian: *** Peter Bradshaw found: “Elvis & Nixon is a diverting portrait of two great alpha dogs at bay, beginning to feel themselves slide.”
Evening Standard: *** Charlotte O’Sullivan wrote: “What a dirty trick, to turn a meeting of warped minds into a soppy bromance.”
Financial Times: *** Nigel Andrews described it as: “quirky, likeable, shortish (at 85 minutes) film.”
The Telegraph: ** Robbie Collin was disappointed saying: “Perhaps this meeting of suspicious minds really was an unsung crux of modern American history, but Elvis & Nixon feels like a trifle about a trifle.”
Variety: “Johnson isn’t the sort of director to let style get in the way, occasionally sacrificing elegance and sheer shot-to-shot continuity in order to privilege her actors’ best takes. But she understands comic timing, as well as the broader-view absurdity the material demands.”
NME: ****Nick Levine was more enthusiastic saying: “Elvis & Nixon is a deliberately frothy confection, more romp than biopic, but it makes you wonder if any of today’s rock stars could gain access to President Obama simply because they’re super-famous.”
The Independent: *** Geoffrey Mcnab thought: “This is a film that feels like a bar room anecdote stretched to feature length and wildly embellished in the process.”
Hollywood Reporter: “hilarious yet acutely observed performances by Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey.”
Rolling Stone: ** (half) Peter Travers wrote: “Elvis & Nixon is a mixed bag as a movie, but Shannon and Spacey are not to be missed.”
Scotsman: ** “the material Spacey has to work with is frustratingly weak, and the film around him – which is desperately short on jokes, satirical or otherwise – illuminates nothing about the political system.”
Radio Times: *** “the lighter touch is novel enough, even if it results in a film about two indelible figures that will itself be quickly forgotten.”
Empire: *** “There’s not a lot of consequence to this bizarre meeting, or really the film, but as a character study of two men alone at the top, it’s both very funny and quietly astute.”
The Mirror: *** “the writers have tapped into the sheer incongruity of the summit.”
Elvis & Nixon is out in cinemas now.