Director: Ron Howard
Starring: Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon, Matthew MacFadyen, Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Hall
Running Time: 122 minutes (plus trailers)
In 1973, Richard Nixon resigned amid a storm of controversy, and in doing so became one of the most hated presidents in American history, although perhaps now overtaken. On top of being reviled, Nixon is also one of the most fascinating presidents, and his career, and particularly his downfall has been the subject of multiple motion pictures, including All The Presidents Men, Oliver Stones Nixon and now Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon. My knowledge of the Nixon era is based solely on films like these so I am not sure exactly how accurate this movie is. Director Ron Howard certainly has been known to sugar coat history in order to create a more dramatic film (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, etc) but to be fair, this can be said of any movie that is supposedly based on true events. Adapted from Peter Morgan’s critically lauded play, this film surrounds the four televised interviews between Nixon (portrayed by Frank Langella) and British talk show host David Frost (portrayed by Michael Sheen) in 1977, four years after Nixon’s retirement. The interviews were viewed by 45 million people, then the largest television audience in history, and Frost, who was expected to be easily outwitted by the former president, instead provided the world with closure on one of the biggest ever political scandals.
Frost/Nixon is certainly a good film. Howard’s direction is first-rate while at the same time not being overt or flashy; he does exactly what is needed to create dramatic tension in any given scene. The performances from both the lead and supporting cast members are great, with Langella deserving on a Best Actor nomination at the Oscars for his portrayal of a sympathetic Dick Nixon. Howard was certainly wise in retaining the stars from the original play, as well as getting Peter Morgan to adapt his own work to the big screen. All in all, Frost/Nixon is a good dramatic movie. But it is not excellent. The reason for this, in my opinion, is because it is a movie. The scenes in the studio, with Nixon and Frost face to face, trying to best each other in a battle of wits, or talking hurriedly in the corner with their advisers, were all fantastic. The rest of the movie, the behind the scenes stuff, getting funding, Frost’s love life and so on, felt a little bland, and as I sat in the cinema, the only thing I found myself truly caring about was getting to that final interview, where Frost would confront Nixon about Watergate and hopefully get a confession of guilt. I have not seen the play, but so many of these peripheral scenes felt as though they had been added in order to make the film more cinematic at the expense of narrative; many of the location changes and minor characters were totally unnecessary, and ultimately, I think this story probably worked far better on the stage with just a few actors and one or two sets. That being said, the film is worth seeing, particularly for the performances and that definitive interview that became one of the most watched moments in television history. Watch the movie, check out the original interviews (available on youtube) and if you have the chance to see the play, do that too.
Rating: 7/10
