Review of Frost/Nixon (2008) by Nick T — 23 Mar 2012

Frost/Nixon (2008).

Written by Peter Morgan.

Directed by Ron Howard.

Starring: Frank Langella (Nixon) and Michael Sheen (Frost).

Awards: Oscar nominations for Best Achievement in Directing, Best Achievement in Editing, Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Golden Globe nominations for Best Dirctor, Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Original Score, Best Performance by an Actor, Best Screenplay.

As you can see from my past reviews, historical and political dramas are not my particular taste. It's not because I can't appreciate finesse or a higher art, I just, like so many of you, prefer to be entertained. If I want to use my brain, I'll pick up a Jared Diamond Harcover and tuck in.

I also, as a rule, don't love screenplay adaptations of plays. There's a passion and intensity in live theatre that is sometimes lost in the translation to the screen. Those close-ups are handy, but overall the performances are rarely as complex and organic.

I will take this moment to swallow those words. I have been converted. Amen. Hallelujah. This was, without hesitation, the most three-dimensional, eloquent, and well-constructed film I have seen since...I honestly cannot think of anything to throw out here. I will take suggestions. To say I was impressed is heretical. I was overcome. For those of you in the DC area, I will tell you my experience in the theatre was comparable to watching Synetic Theatre's Macbeth...that's the best possible acclamation I can give anything. I hardly know where to begin.

"Frost/Nixon" is the screen adaptation of Peter Morgan's play dramatizing the infamous television interview between Richard Nixon and David Frost in 1977. It sympathetically follows Frost's quicksand-like struggle to produce the interview from brain-spark through broadcast.

Morgan writes the events with Sun Tzu-like intricacy, shining the proverbial spotlight on the political and personal dance from both Frost's and Nixon's viewpoints. Thank god he wrote the screenplay himself, because I cannot imagine anyone else grasping the delicacy and subtleties of the war waging in these two men, both against each other and within themselves. He understands tactical manipulation to such degrees that at times I wasn't sure if Frost was the target or if I was. More often than not, I was sure it was both.

Even as I write this, I am both angered and awestruck by the depths to which my emotions were tampered while I sat in the theatre. I felt betrayed and desperate for hope. I was completely unwilling to tolerate the character of Nixon but found him charming and mesmeric. And if I understand correctly, that is very much how the public felt towards the man at the time.

This is the quality that Frank Langella so incomparably captured as Nixon. People have been raving about his performance without giving tangible proof in his favor. I believe this is the reason he did not win an Oscar. But that is also exactly why his performance of Nixon is unlike any others. He was able to wrangle that indescribable slipperiness of Nixon that got him elected in the first place. He captured Nixon's smarmy cunning we all know to hate by perfectly imitating his personal pacing and chilling audacity. But, most importantly, Langella also maneuvered Nixon's personal demons and exposed the loneliness and self-deprecation no one in the public could see. With subtle glimpses and the help of reflective dialogue, Langella blew open the doors to the truth of Nixon, every actor's dream of dreams.

And beyond my disappointment in the lack of appropriate appreciation for Langella and Morgan, I am appalled that Sheen has received none at all. In Hollywood Sheen is a virtual nobody. This is Lucien from the "Underworld" movies, people. "Underworld." The man has had few opportunities to prove himself, but at this chance, he has done much more than that. It is commendable even that he anchored his side of the screen, opposite what everyone knows to be an epic performance by Langella. But he more than just held his own. It helps that these two had time to develop the nuances of tempo and nonverbal acting in their relationship on stage together. But regardless of time and practice, Sheen produced a character full of emotional layers and an empathy that didn't need to be spelled out through dialogue. His character was portrayed almost completely in subtext, the audience so often aware that Frost's words were completely superficial. The dichotomy of his character was evident in his eyes, which carried his own truth like a billboard for the audience. For every word Frost spoke aloud, Sheen showed novels of inner monologue that painted for the audience a portrait like I haven't seen since Russell Crowe in "The Insider.".

And of course no on is surprised by Ron Howard's ability to link this skilled triad into a well-constructed overall work. Naturally, his unique insights of film performance from all aspects fuse in "Frost/Nixon" to be another congruous whole. Howard understands the end product better than almost everyone in Hollywood and is a master at complementing the strengths of each individual component. As a result, there is nothing superfluous in the movie and nothing left lacking. It is complete and polished. What more could you ask of a director?

Overall: "Frost/Nixon" is staggering. I believe it will be one of the most underestimated films of all time, and I consider it my personal responsibility as a patron of the arts to promote its magnificence to everyone I can. So please, as a favor to me, give it a chance.

Rating: Night of the Living Dead.

Best Quote: "You have no idea how fortunate that makes you, liking people. Being liked. Having that facility. That lightness, that charm. I don't have it, I never did." -Nixon.