फ़्रॉस्ट/निक्सन

Frank Langella's performance as Nixon is truly moving in this remarkable film by Ron Howard, which gripped me for its entirety. As someone who grew up during the Watergate hearings, and who reviled Nixon as the embodiment not just of corruption but of the worst kind of interventionist, even genocidal, American politics, this film gives substance to a man who, in later years (especially the GW Bush years, which make Nixon look like a political and intellectual colossus), achieved something of a place in history beyond the scandal of Watergate.

But what Frost/Nixon - and in particular Langella - does is give humanity to the man. We see his arrogance, his love of power, his need to win (hinted at wonderfully in a moment when he is jogging in his San Clemente home to rousing music), but we also see his inner conflicts, his regrets, the fact that perhaps more than simply his crimes regarding Watergate haunted him - that the impact of his decisions on South East Asia were not entirely remote from him, either. And in a sequence that I will not reveal, to avoid spoiling the plot, we also see a hint of his madness, for it is that, I think, rather than senility. (You have to see it to understand this.)

Ron Howard and playwright/screenwriter Peter Morgan have achieved a remarkable feat in adapting the stage play, which sadly I did not see. Not for a moment does this feel stage bound; instead it is a compelling human portrait of two men - for Frost is fascinating, too, and Michael Sheen captures both his much criticized (at the time) surface gloss and also his deeper fears - but above all of the impact that each of our decisions, large and small, and not least if you are leader of the "Free World," have on us all.

A remarkable performance by Frank Langella as Richard Nixon transforms this unexpected Ron Howard film into a gripping and unforgettable experience. The behind the scenes of the famous David Frost, Richard Nixon interviews pale in comparison to the compelling sight of Nixon/Langella thinking. It was difficult to forget that Michael Sheen was not Tony Blair but David Frost. Sheen's Frost is an entertaining foil to Langella's somber,sad, desolate portrait of the former president. Ron Howard finds a winning pace giving the true tale a fictional slant. Unfortunately I never saw the stage production and the film never betrays its theatrical origins. In a bizarre sort of way this is Ron Howard's most cinematic film. I highly recommend it.

Ron Howard's competent film adaptation of Peter Morgan's play (who also scripted and co-produced here) dramatizes the famous Frost/Nixon interviews from 1977. At one point in the film, Kevin Bacon's character explains to Frank Langella's Nixon that a portion of the interview will focus on "Nixon the man". To which Nixon retorted, "As opposed to what? Nixon the horse?" Of course what was on everyone's mind at the time was Watergate and how American was never able to give Nixon the trial they so desperately wanted. Through the unlikely Frost interviews, the American people finally heard the truth behind the scandal--straight from the horse's mouth.

Morgan's source material translates smoothly onto film. Much as he did with "The Queen", he mixes a behind the scenes look at the immediate time period leading up to the historical event and closes with an almost word-for-word dramatization of said event. Also, like "The Queen", we have the excellent Michael Sheen on board, who after playing Tony Blair now takes on the mannerisms of the legendary British talk-show host and man-about-town David Frost. Director Ron Howard nicely interweaves archival news footage, faux-post interviews with the secondary players, and the dramatic reenactments of the actual Frost/Nixon interviews. Howard's studied but pedestrian style of direction lends itself well to this type of docudrama as he allows the actual events to speak for themselves and the fine performances to shine on their own. Though it takes quite awhile to get where it's going, the final interview where Frost takes Nixon head-on about the Watergate cover-up is a payoff well worth the wait.

Of course the most fascinating aspect of the film is Frank Langella's portrayal of a shamed and swollen Richard Nixon. He plays him as a fallen man desperate for an act of contrition but still in too deep with his old trickery and slick ways. His performance, and the way it connects with the audience, is wonderfully layered. On one level, we have an aged actor thought to be well past his prime firing back on all cylinders in a renaissance role that will likely lead to a showering of award nominations. The way the film reduces his performance to that one lingering close-up after being steamrolled by Frost on the last day of the interview leaves a lasting impression. But it also works on another level as it is meant to represent the reduction of Nixon's political life to that one lingering close-up on the television monitor when he realized it's all over for him. The audience members who remember watching the interviews and can picture the actual close-up they saw on their TV screens are now allowed to share a communion with the audience members who weren't even born yet and now only have a memory of Langella's face on the silver screen. In that sense, Langella truly became Nixon, and his performance will not soon be forgotten.

The Frost/Nixon interviews are fascinating. Not every second of them, especially not when Nixon rambles on and on, avoiding questions by offering anecdotes in place of answers. Yet, they are an invaluable historical document, which allow us the rare privilege of seeing a major politician as a human being and nothing else. As interesting as the interviews themselves is the lead-up to them, the circumstances surrounding them, and the characters involved, particularly Frost and Nixon, of course. One could say that you only need to watch the actual footage, but there's ample room for a great dramatization, but it needed an even-handed approach, and certainly needed no political preaching.

I have a personal dislike for Ron Howard as a director, a result of my sensibilities mainly, I suspect. Howard strikes me as a particularly heavy-handed, didactic director who has wasted many great concepts on mediocre films (out of 18 films I've seen by him, I only genuinely liked "Apollo 13". I was expecting the worst with "Frost/Nixon", but instead was met with one of the most entertaining films in a while, and a remarkably well-acted, even-handed, quality character study. I suppose I should have been prepared for a quality screenplay given the success of this Peter Morgan play in New York and London, but I was hardly expecting something this good. It's glib, funny, well-paced, expertly-structured, clever, observant, and intelligent. It creates a fascinating Nixon, played brilliantly by the great Frank Langella, though this is not quite up there with the likes of Oliver Stone's sadly under-appreciated "Nixon" or Robert Altman's endlessly fascinating "Secret Honor". The film is almost surprisingly well-directed, although there is a bit of the old TV trick of shaking the camera a bit, panning too often, to give the illusion of motion and energy when there's really just people in a room talking. The conversation's interesting enough, there's no need for that. Oh well, I suppose I am nitpicking.

As far as Nixon movies go this is lightweight entertainment with plenty of comic moments largely leading up to two or three scenes of real human vulnerability. Aside from these scenes (which are truly, truly excellent), Peter Morgan conceives the meeting as something of a chess match with the unpredictability of a boxing match. To use J. Hoberman's words 'a prize fight between two comeback-hungry veterans, only one of whom could win'. On paper this could have been very heavy on amateur psychoanalysis and low on entertainment value but Morgan and I suppose Howard as well are clever enough to have some fun with the idea. This is not a criticism at all, the film has moments of surprisingly real depth and intellectualism, but overall the nature of the script works in its favor, makes those scenes more interesting, more ultimately rewarding.

"Frost/Nixon" is an entertaining, exciting film, around as populist as I expected but in a very different way. This is the sort of writing we don't see enough of, particularly not in today's films. It's vaguely reminiscent of a particularly good BBC television drama. The cast is certainly good enough for that. Langella and Michael Sheen are outstanding, both manage to accurately portray the real-life men they are portraying while still adding some characterization and mannerisms of their own. Langella's Tony-award winning performance might be up for Oscar consideration soon, but Sheen's Frost almost upstages him at times. No heavy-handedness, no political 'messages', just a fun, clever script and a great cast in a well-made film.

I almost skipped "Frost/Nixon," and I am glad I didn't. It's eminently worthwhile, one of the year's few films that deserves to be seen.

My reluctance had to do with the expectation that it will offer nothing new to somebody who lived through the Watergate years and saw the Frost interviews (although remembering surprisingly little of them).

Ron Howard's film is anything but ho-hum - if anything it's a bit too gussied up to be exciting. There is an element of discernible manipulation of the audience, but mostly it works, and you don't long resist it.

The (relatively) unsung hero of the film besides Howard, Frank Langella's tremendous Nixon, and Michael Sheen's excellent Frost is the screenwriter: once again Peter Morgan (of "The Last King of Scotland" and "The Queen") engages mind and heart, and doesn't let go. Sam Rockwell's James Reston, Jr. and Oliver Platt's Bob Zelnick (Frost's two collaborators) are outstanding, and Kevin Bacon's Nixon-worshipping Jack Brennan is the actor's best work in a long time.

Morgan and Howard manage to make the viewer think constantly of another criminal President without saying or showing anything overt - they just let history, past and present, speak.

I had a strange, uncomfortable thought watching "Frost/Nixon": even if some future film "humanizes" (not excuses) Bush the way Nixon comes through this one, W. would still remain a malevolent midget against Nixon's accomplishments and actual *brain*. How far we have fallen.