Better than I expected

Rating: 7/10 (1 March 2009)

I haven't (yet) seen the play on which this movie is based, so I can't say whether it's faithful to it, better, worse, different, etc. All I know is the movie, which I just saw in the theater.
It was a little disconcerting for me at first, as I kept seeing David Frost in terms of former Prime Minister Tony Blair (because the actor who plays Frost played Blair in The Queen). That's not the movie's fault, but it definitely skewed how I first saw Frost, i.e., I didn't see him as the largely frivolous man that contemporary viewers were used to seeing - even though the movie did a good job of presenting that aspect of Frost's career at that point.
It also took me a little time to get used to Langella as Nixon. Because he doesn't look like Nixon, I at first saw a bad impressionist doing Nixon. Again, that wasn't the movie's fault. Langella doesn't try to do an impression of Nixon. But it took me awhile to see him as Nixon. Once my mind made that shift, my involvement very much changed.
For the better. This movie gets better and better as it goes on. Once it gets to the preparations for the final interview, it really becomes a first-rate movie. By the end, I was very moved. Which surprised me. I didn't feel at all sorry for Nixon, nor did I feel any great joy at Frost's eventual success. The movie doesn't try to make you cheer for the latter or weep for the former. Rather, I had a feeling of sadness at seeing what a deeply flawed person Nixon turns out to be, and the thought that such a man led our nation, and mislead it, with that flaw.
It's definitely a movie worth seeing. It might be better watching it at home, as the first part may not hold you and being at home would give you a chance to get up to go to the kitchen for something, etc. But once the preparation for the final interview begins, you will be happy you rented it, and won't have any desire to take a break.