The Rise and Fall of Showmen

Rating: 10/10 (26 April 2009)

FROST/NIXON is one of the most successful screen adaptations of a play yet made. Perhaps that is due in part to the fact that the popular stage play by Peter Morgan was revised for the screen by the playwright, but it is also to the credit of director Ron Howard who managed to suffuse the 'play as movie' with such atmosphere and feeling of spontaneity that the rather long movie seems to whisk by more rapidly than history!
Everyone knows of the infamous David Frost interview with Richard Nixon after Nixon had resigned office and was living in semi-seclusion in San Clemente, California, a bitter man struggling with the demons not only form the recent past but also form his childhood. Frost took on the challenge to bring the perpetrator of the Watergate scandal to his knees to satisfy the American public's need for retribution, and in conducting these interviews he did indeed achieve that. The story is as much a character study of Frost as it is of Nixon and the parallels writer Morgan uncovers makes the film far more than a quasi-documentary. This is real drama played for all it's worth.
Frank Langella is unforgettable in his portrayal of Nixon as is Michael Sheen as Frost, each actor having played the roles on Broadway and transferring that depth of understanding to the screen. The surprise in this film is the use of the peripheral cast of characters - Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, Matthew Macfadyen, and Toby Jones - a group of actors who light the darker corners of the story with aplomb.
FROST/NIXON should be required viewing for every Political Science major in our schools - and hopefully will urge the nation to find a similar manner to bring closure to the strangely coincidental machinations of the recent Bush administration crimes. Grady Harp