Elvis & Nixon(2016)

Plot Summary

• On the morning of December 21, 1970, actor-singer Elvis Presley (Michael Shannon) shows up to the White House and requests for an urgent meeting with President Richard Nixon (Kevin Spacey), to swear him in as an undercover agent in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Richard Nixon started recording all phone calls & meetings in office from Feb 1971. So, there is no record of this meeting.21st December 1970 starts like any other presidential day. Richard is angry that he has a meeting with Elvis Presley that day and wants to know who set that up. Elvis is bored out of his skull & flies to LA from Memphis (his home). Jerry Schilling (Alex Pettyfer) is Elvis's longtime friend. Elvis is detained at Memphis airport for carrying guns on an airplane. Elvis calls Jerry who advises Elvis to offer the cops a pic with their kids, to get out of the jam.Elvis offers Jerry to start up a studio. Jerry is not interested. That's when Elvis reveals that he needs a federal badge as thinks the US is going to shit (war, crime & riots) and that he can help. Elvis & Jerry flew to DC where Elvis hand delivers a letter to the White House, requesting a meeting with the President, which is how December 21st happened, as the White House staffers are excited to see Elvis & need an outside validation for the President.While the White House senior execs debate the merits of granting Elvis the meeting with the President (the defining argument being that Elvis is loved by every single voter in the south of USA). Elvis is waiting around in his hotel room & heads to the Department of Drugs & Narcotics, which falls under the FBI, to see if he can get a meeting with J Edgar Hoover. Elvis meets John Finlator (Tracy Letts), Deputy Director of the Drugs & Narcotics department. Elvis says he is worried about the drug issue impacting US youth and wants to be an agent for the department of Narcotics. Finlator declines Elvis's proposition.Meanwhile Jerry receives a call from Egil Krogh (Colin Hanks) at the press department at White House, who says they are working on the invitation for Elvis to meet the President & is 90% positive that it will happen the same day itself. Egil meets Nixon and pitches the meeting with Presley. Nixon listens to the whole youth pitch but is opposed to the idea of bringing a rock star into the Oval office. Egil tells Jerry, who tells Elvis that Nixon doesn't want to meet Elvis. Egil then leaks to Nixon's 22 years old daughter that Nixon nixed a meeting with Elvis. The daughter, Julie, forces Nixon to accept the meeting for an autograph and a few pics.Elvis is thrilled to get the confirmation. He shows up to the White House with Jerry. He is frisked off all his guns. He has brought a special gift for the President, which is also a commemorative gun, which Egil tells Elvis will be presented to the President, after thorough checks.Dwight Chapin (Evan Peters), special aide to the President, meets Elvis next. He guides Elvis on the protocols of the Oval office, which Elvis finds funny. In his mind, Elvis rehearses a story on how his twin brother was born 35 mins before him still born. His mother had the happiest and the saddest moment of her life together. God felt guilty for her & gave Elvis twice the luck.Elvis is shown into the Oval office & he breaks every protocol there is. He impresses the President with his views on youth & family. Nixon is impressed. Elvis then gets into politics by saying he hates the Beatles for making money in America, but then berating USA back home, specifically for Nixon's intervention in Vietnam.Elvis is hell bent on getting a federal badge. Nixon agrees to grant the badge, if Elvis would sign the autograph and have a picture with his daughter. Elvis agrees if Nixon would meet his friends, who were not allowed to enter the Oval office. Elvis then even presents the confiscated firearm to Nixon as his gift. Nixon loves Elvis. Elvis is sworn in as a Federal Agent at 4 30 PM in his hotel room, the same day.

Storyline

• Elvis Presley , the King of Rock 'n Roll, and President Richard Nixon , resulting in this revealing, yet humorous moment immortalized in the most requested photograph in the National Archives. On a December morning in 1970, the King of Rock 'n Roll showed up on the lawn of the White House to request a meeting with the most powerful man in the world, President Nixon. Starring Academy Award® nominee Michael Shannon as Elvis Presley and two-time Academy Award® winner Kevin Spacey as Richard Nixon, comes the untold true story behind this revealing, yet humorous moment in the Oval Office forever immortalized in the most requested photograph in the National Archives. — Bleecker Street On the morning of December 21, 1970, actor-singer Elvis Presley shows up to the White House and requests an urgent meeting with President Richard Nixon. Presley opposes the drug culture, the hippie movement, SDS, and Black Panthers; he wants Nixon to swear him in as an undercover agent in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.. An iconic photograph of Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon , arguably the two most famous men of the generation for different reasons, was taken at the White House on December 21, 1970 following a meeting between the two. That event and photograph form the jumping off point for this imagining of the machinations that transpired that morning leading to the meeting happening and what happened at the meeting itself. Concerned for the state of various aspects of American society, Elvis feels like he owes it to his country to serve by becoming an undercover Federal Agent At Large, he personally going to the White House previously unannounced to drop off a letter for Nixon requesting a meeting for it to happen. He is able to convince his friend and former employee Jerry Schilling to accompany him, Jerry having left his employ for the toll it was taking on his personal life. In the process of this day and Elvis trying to convince him to return working for him, Jerry forgets an important previous engagement he has back in Los Angeles that evening, missing it which would again negatively affect his personal life. While Jerry stays with Elvis to deal with this issue important in Elvis' life, people close to the President also try to get the meeting to happen that day if only for the good PR, the President in turn seeing it solely as a stunt and more importantly an impingement on his schedule as it would impede on his important daily routine of a nap. — Huggo