Frost/Nixon

Virtually no one turned down an interview with David Frost. Not even disgraced former Presidents. It was easy to see why; non-confrontational style, a refusal to ask sensitive questions, an avoidance at seemingly all costs at making the interviewee uncomfortable in any possible way. Frost was therefore extraordinarily popular amongst the cultural elite.  His birthday parties were filled with notables.  Isn't that Hefner over there? And look, Neil Diamond is holding court with a song especially written for the guest of honor. In other words, David Frost was not the most likely inquisitor of Richard M. Nixon, thirty-seventh President of the United States. 

It was the mid-1970s, and Nixon had retreated to his seaside California home in shameful exile. Free to obsess and self-loathe in private for once. The country moved on after Watergate and the eventual pardon, but the wounds and disillusionment would not heal so quickly. Even a "fluff" interviewer like David Frost (Michael Sheen), an Englishman who helmed entertainment shows in London and Australia, in his world of celebrity frivolity, was affected by what appeared to be great human drama. 

To cop an interview with Nixon would redefine his vacuous (though profitable) career. Perhaps some credibility would be lent to his narrow shoulders. It wouldn't come cheaply. After some negotiations with legendary Hollywood agent Swifty Lazar, Frost would come to hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars to sit with Nixon for several days of face-to-face before the cameras. Most of the money would come out of Frost's own pockets. It became do or die. The first day does not go well for the Frost team, comprised also of his television producer (John Birt), a veteran journalist (Oliver Platt), and a fiery James Reston, Jr. (Sam Rockwell). Nixon is a master at the art of, not deflecting a tough question, but rather using it as a launching point for non-sequitur tangents that eat up valuable tape, enough to render the first session a disaster. Why?

It seems that FROST/NIXON is telling the story of a lightweight showman from across the pond who, in his bid for respectability, attempts to wring from his subject a confession of guilt that will likewise rattle and satisfy the souls of a country completely sold out in the name of National Security. Anything short of a damning confession from Nixon would just not be good drama, good T.V. So what was Frost's intention? What drove him to continue the interviews even as his backers pulled out? Even as his Australian program is canceled? Was it truly a noble calling to facilitate a man coming clean (for Nixon), or a selfish pursuit of a more respectable sort of fame (for himself). 

Peter Morgan's original play and this adaptation allow the viewer to draw his or her own conclusions. Director Ron Howard, on the other hand, seems to be firmly in the Frost camp. I think he bathes the team's cause in nobility, i.e., it becomes David Frost's duty to draw out the words. Provide the trial that Nixon was spared by Gerald Ford's pardon. But what about Nixon, played beautifully on stage and here by Frank Langella? Did he take this opportunity merely for the money, or to unload a universe full of guilt? Here was a man weighed upon by hours of damning tapes and hearings, mountains of evidence that lead to his resignation. I'm sure he confessed to God and the walls many a night after 1974 but in 1977 he finally had the chance for a public mea culpa. 

FROST/NIXON is a tense, thriller-like drama detailing the lead up to and the famous interviews in question. I could nit pick the script, complain of how at its essence we have yet another come-from-behind-victory piece, complete with the requisite bottoming out scene, the motivation scene, and the inevitable celebration. I'm speaking of David Frost, as he suffers through the early lackluster sessions as Nixon blathers through his answers to tough questions about Cambodia and Vietnam. His ace team berates him. Frost shrugs it off but then has the Moment of Realization, and the Rising to the Occasion. But in this film, it's a doozy, coming in the form of a drunken late night call from Nixon himself to Frost, as the latter despairs around his apartment. Nixon lets his guard down and delivers a strident, profane motivation speech to his younger charge. "After this interview, one of us will be the victor, the other will be in the wilderness," he more or less concludes. We know who would eventually walk in said wilderness. Long after the interviews. 

Langella overcomes his lack of resemblance to the President (though he has the hunch and profile down) by inhabiting his mannerisms, his nuances. By the end he really is Nixon. His big speech recalled Philip Baker Hall in SECRET HONOR, a most favorable comparison. Sheen also reprises his stage role as Frost, easily portraying a casual style that gives way to focused determination. The entire cast is quite good, though I question the necessity of the character of Caroline (Rebecca Hall), a woman Frost picks up on an airplane and who becomes his girlfriend. She does little other than to smile and provide encouragement. Aside from Jennifer Connelly in A BEAUTIFUL MIND, I can't recall a really strong part for a woman in any of Howard's films. Howard directs sparingly and wisely so, as the material is so compelling any trickery would've been gratuitous. He frames it with style though, deftly slow zooming at the right moments, allowing the principals' faces to fill the screen when needed. If you look closely, both Frost's and Nixon's faces tell their stories before either of them opens their mouths. That's some seriously fine acting.