One might find it hard to believe that a film that about an interview, preparing for the interview, talking about the interview, and conducting the interview, could be entertaining. Ron Howard once again proves with "Frost/Nixon" that he is one of the great directors of our time and can literally take any subject and make it captivating. "Frost/Nixon" is little on action, but it's big on subtlety.
Essentially knowing nothing about David Frost and very little about Nixon (his Presidency was over before I was born); I entered the film with a blank palette. As the film opens, we see David Frost portrayed not as a journalist, but as a talk show host...and an average one at that. He's a slick talking Austin Powers-esque man with a charming smile who is never at a loss for words. He was already very well-known overseas and had met with a great deal of success. In the film, he appears to only want to interview the recently-resigned Richard Nixon for publicity purposes. At one point, he's asked by his producer if he has a "plan" for interviewing Nixon, and Frost essentially avoids the question. While understanding the importance of interviewing Nixon, he walks around with a swagger that screams "I'm in over my head!"
Frost was humbled when he came to the American television networks, asking for funding for the interview. He essentially had to pay for the interviews out of his own pocket. Despite having already convinced Nixon to participate in the interviews, American networks would not fund the interviews and advertisers backed out. They saw no reason to pay exorbitant amounts of money for a British talk show host to get eaten alive on national TV by one of the nation's fiercest politicians. After Frost finds the mean to fund the interview, and by "fund the interview" I mean "pay Nixon," he gets to work on preparing for the greatest, and toughest, interview of his career.
The film itself is done magnificently. Howard incorporates some documentary-style interviews into the film that help to give the viewer a closer look into the inner workings of the preparations for the interview, as well as to add some depth. Howard uses the camera magnificently, saying a great deal with very little, if any, actual words. He did, however, have a few moments that crossed the line between poignant shot and belaboring the point.
The performances on both sides were stellar. As I was told by a friend who worked on the film, Frank Langella was in character all the time as Richard Nixon. He had to be called "Mr. President," even when not filming. He was in character so much that, after the film wrapped, crew members were shocked to find Langella was indeed NOT Richard Nixon. The effort shows in his performance. From the voice to the mannerism to the walk, Langella has Nixon down to a tee. An Oscar nomination is certain to come in January. Sheen also does a phenomenal job as David Frost. He plays the character with a relaxed coolness that would be necessary to keep those around you calm in the face of a political figure like Richard Nixon. At the same time, we can see that Frost, too, is concerned, and questions his own ability to succeed with the interviews.
Unfortunately, the film is not without its flaws. While the film itself is still entertaining for anyone who doesn't lose focus without the occasional fight and/or car chase, I couldn't help while watching the film but feel as if Howard was being somewhat liberal with the facts. Upon arriving home and doing the research, my suspicions were found to be correct. In the film, Frost is portrayed as an under qualified joke in the eyes of the American media. He essentially has no plan going into the interviews, and it shows. During the first several sessions, he proves the criticism to be true, as Nixon dominates the interviews and Frost is left looking like a helpless victim. It is only after a phone call from Nixon prior to the final interview session (a scene which is one of the most powerful in the film), that Frost finds the motivation to really do his homework and get serious about the interview. Then, like Michael Jordan, he dominates the fourth quarter and steals the game with a resounding buzzer beating game winner. All of this is a very nice storybook ending, but apparently not how it really happened.
The phone call during which Frost found the motivation for his fourth quarter comeback, apparently never happened. This fact essentially tears down the entire way in which Frost is portrayed in the film. As mentioned earlier, he's portrayed as a screw up who has failed in the interviews up to this point. He then finds the motivation in the phone call, and gets his act together. If the phone call never happened, where did he find the motivation? To take it one step further, if motivation never came, was he ever really failing in the first place? Then that begs the question of whether or not he was ever really an under qualified talk show host in the first place. Was he actually a good journalist the entire time, and this whole concept of an average fellow beating the mighty Richard Nixon just done to add more human interest to the story? Whether or not any of this is the case really isn't even the point. It's the fact that without knowing anything about Frost, I was able to tell just watching the movie that the way in which he was being portrayed may not be accurate.
Upon reading a bio of Frost, it appears that he actually was a respectable journalist. Although he did host several satirical programs early in his career, he also had many legitimate shows to his credit prior to the Nixon interviews. He hosted a heavier interview-based show called "The Frost Programme," and a tribute to JFK following his assassination on "That Was the Week That Was" brought him some American notoriety. He's also the only person to have interviewed all six British Prime Ministers.
Having said that, all of this takes very little, if anything, from the film itself. If you're looking for some action, you might want to see "Quantum of Solace." But if you're looking for an in depth look into the greatest political scandal of all-time, as well as seeing one of the best performances of the year, look no further. "Frost/Nixon" is entirely entertaining and interesting, even if it did have to have a little extra thrown in to make it that way.
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