An electric adaptation of a brilliant play

Rating: 9/10 (25 January 2009)

Richard Nixon is a compelling figure. However, reduced to a two-dimensional demon by popular culture and perhaps best known to a new generation as a character from "Futurama", Nixon "The man" has been somewhat lost. One character in "Frost/Nixon" asks "How can you possibly feel sympathy for Richard Nixon?" In this film, set against the backdrop of his post-Watergate disgrace and his first post-Presidential interview, with British chat show host and journalist David Frost, Nixon is quietly but completely made into a sympathetic figure.
This is only half of the tale however. This film, adapted from Peter Morgan's electric stage play, is as much about the smaller figure of Frost, now a grandfather of modern British television and only recently retired from political interviewing. The Frost shown here (Morgan taking advantage of the interviewer's relative anonymity and using a bit of artistic licence) is struggling to shake off his chat show host background and risks everything for the interview of the century. No-one wants him and he seems doomed to fail.
It is a story of two men of ambition in a boxing duel: Nixon desperate to get back to the East coast and into public life once more and Frost equally determined to be successful and prove everyone wrong. As the contest slowly unfolds, the film becomes more gripping, interesting and electric to experience. At the heart of this success are the brilliant writing, subtle direction and outstanding acting.
Morgan's script is a masterpiece. The play came out in the same year as "The Queen", for which he received an Oscar nomination, but this was the superior piece and he transfers it to the screenplay format with panache. It is a brilliant portrait of two men locked in a quiet battle where their opponent is not necessarily an enemy, but only one of them can win, at the ultimate cost of the other. It cannot be as fluid a piece of storytelling as it is on stage and the attempt to frame the story with a documentary style series of interviews jars a little, but this is more than made up for by the quality of what is contained within and the careful direction of Ron Howard.
Howard has incredible respect for the play but realises that this is cinema and makes it fit the medium. The power of television, and the close up, becomes more apparent here as every flinch and twitch is caught on screen. Still, although this is a talky film (and a bit of a slow starter), there is a lot of motion. The camera flows through the world and circles around the characters capturing the film beautifully and giving it a necessary dynamism. Not that this is required to keep the audience's attention, as they are quickly sucked in by the quality of the performances.
Whilst the supporting cast includes wonderful little turns by the underestimated Kevin Bacon, Toby Jones and Oliver Platt, and another impressive performance by the increasingly good Sam Rockwell, they are thoroughly outshone by the superb leads. It is unfair on Michael Sheen that his co-star alone is attracting nominations like moths to a flame as he is brilliant. Having got the mannerisms of Frost down, he constructs a performance of subtlety, control and power. He is matched by Langella who's Nixon is a triumph. He is painted as the liar and fool he deserves to be, but also as a determined man, frustrated by his flaws. Langella is great at realising this. The voice is memorable and rings in the ears long after the film has ended, whilst the physicality of his "tricky Dicky" is carefully managed for maximum effect: sometimes big and imposing, sometimes smaller and more world-weary.
They reach their high point in an electric last forty-five minutes, including the (rightly) praised fictional phone call, where it is impossible to tear your eyes away from the screen. The power of television and the close-up (and good cinema) is proved, the dust settles and the aftermath is left and, when the red mist clears, even the most hard-bitten, liberal hippie might find a surprise. You might feel a great deal of sympathy for Richard Nixon.
4 Stars out of 5