REVIEW: Frost/Nixon (2008) FIVE STARS

Frost/Nixon

Rated: R

Runtime: 124 minutes

Starring: Frank Langella, Michael Sheen

My rating: 5 stars

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Frost/Nixon starts off like a documentary, turns into a boxing match, escalates to a war and finishes with a handshake between two men at peace. It's fierce, funny, and fantastic. Credit director Ron Howard and a marvelous performance from Frank Langella as Richard Nixon for this masterpiece.

Australian talk show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) had a dream to interview Nixon days after resigning from the Presidency. No one thought Frost would get it. His enduring hope, persistence, optimism, and $600,000 landed him the Nixon interviews.

Frost raised some of the money through investors, some through advertisers, and the rest came out of his pocket. He seemed jolly throughout and never fully understood the magnitude of the interviews until he was face to face with Nixon. Then he realized this interview wasn't like anything he did before. He's overwhelmed, outmatched, and Nixon is clearly dominating the topics. Frost has to figure out a way to get Nixon's confession.

The television close-up is a recurring theme in Frost/Nixon. Nixon says it's the reason he didn't defeat John F. Kennedy. He didn't really know what the close-up actually reveals.

Howard chooses to only use Nixon for close-ups. The only time he does it is when Nixon shows deep sadness or realization. We see what's on the inside, beneath the Nixon's words. The tightest shot on anyone else still shows part of the neck and shoulders.

On Nixon's close-ups, and only at critical moments, we see from slightly above his eyes to just below his lips. Langella conveys Nixon's inner struggle through nearly imperceptible movements. We don't even need music to tell us how we're supposed to feel about the shot. These directorial decisions and Langella's performance are why Ron Howard is up for “Best Director,” and Langella earned a “Best Actor” nomination. It's stunning work.

The screenplay is an adaptation of a stage play, which was created based on the actual Nixon interviews conducted by Frost. There is plenty twisting of the order of events, but it's necessary for the dramatic effect and doesn't take away from the picture. A colleague pointed out that Nixon comes off looking like a horrible president who never accomplished anything in office, and all he did was Watergate. I imagine plenty of others took away the same view of Nixon. I didn't.

Nixon is shown as a troubled man. It's never more obvious than in his late-night drunken phone call to Frost's hotel room. Here is a man whose life was spent trying to live up to expectations, at all costs. Those goals were always unattainable, and he need to set his own expectations, not live up to anyone else's. He never did that, and subsequently always felt inadequate.

There is a lot of ourselves in Nixon. We all know people who constantly try to please everyone else. It may be their parents or friends, but they never seem happy because whatever they do isn't enough. That was Nixon's ultimate foible. Although Frost/Nixon is about his Watergate failures on the surface, it's actually about human flaws. Nixon happened to be in the position where those flaws have severe consequences. This film almost defends Nixon, almost.

Opposed to Nixon, is Frost. He's groomed, poised and people love him. He didn't follow politics and really didn't know much about Watergate, but a chance at major ratings and more money drove him to pursue the interview with Nixon. He grows as Nixon falls. He starts concerned with looking good and saving the interview for personal gain. It isn't until Nixon's phone call where he understands this is bigger than him.

Frost must succeed because there will never be another chance. He must succeed because the American public needs him to.

Frost/Nixon is tremendous, and contains much more than a simple dramatic documentation of the Nixon interviews. It's a human drama at it's core. It takes us two men, who thought they knew who they were, and takes them on a journey of actual self-realization. At the end, they're both for the better. Five stars.

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Where it's playing?

Only in Potsdam: Click here for current listings.

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