An Oscar Contender

Rating: Null/10 (5 December 2008)

David Frost: Are you really saying the President can do something illegal? Richard Nixon: I'm saying that when the President does it, that means it's *not* illegal! David Frost: ... I'm sorry?
Finally a legitimate Oscar candidate for best picture and actor. Believe me I was determined not to like the hollywoodization of Frost/Nixon after I had been thrilled by the London stage production with Michael Sheen and Frank Langella in the titular roles. It turns out that Ron Howard's film is the perfect film complement to the stage production as it moves to offices and locations the stage couldn't and as it gives more time to supporting roles.
Most of all the close-ups are the distinguishing film contribution to this historical 1977 event in which unremarkable TV host David Frost gave former president Richard Nixon 4 interviews, the final one devoted to Watergate. For the last 30 years many of us have been relieved by Nixon's admitting in the fourth interview that he erred in the cover up leading to his resignation, the only president in history to do so. The film is not as prosaic as my synopsis, for its drama is distributed slowly by flashback and talking heads in an unobtrusive documentary style that efficiently gives facts but relies on the drama to make a compelling story.
For most of the film, Ron Howard focuses on the boyish Frost as his impending tragedy is that he can't find enough funding for the project. Coupled with his playboy image and perception of him as a lightweight (although he graduated from Oxford, for goodness sake), the first half of the film is agonizing for sympathizers.
Director Howard uses the camera like a scalpel dissecting every puff and pain on Langella's Nixonian visage. He plays the Nixon characteristics with subtlety; on the stage, he didn't overplay either, in fact underplayed them all. The film Nixon more closely reflects his real-life identifiers such as jowls, stoop, and hairline; the stage relied less so even with Langella in the role.
Both productions carry the fascination with a tricky president who still had artifice about him long after his boys had stormed Watergate.