The difficulties in capturing historical politics on-screen are numerous; accuracy is essential considering the film has little to do with “history” if it manipulates the facts or leans towards a particular political spectrum. So many films (Ollie Stone, I’m looking at you) distort and expand on reality in such a way that often you are watching the creator’s own impression of the events, rather than an honest recreation. Ron Howard’s newest film, Frost/Nixon, risks political bias and never quite achieves the relevance it hopes for, however salvaged the final product is by humanist perfomances courtesy Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, and Matthew Macfadyen, among others.
Michael Sheen plays David Frost, a toothy talk show host in search of a big ratings draw. He decides that an interview with the recently resigned Richard Nixon (Langella) would be the publicity Frost needs to rocket into fame, and so he and his producer John Birt (Macfayden) broker a deal independent of the networks and eventually offer Nixon an exorbant fee to conduct a series of interviews over the course of four long days. Nixon, a looming competitor, battles wits with Frost both on and off set.
It is a compelling film in that it gives heightened drama to what could have been a mundane interview; Frost interrogates Nixon, bringing up several pieces of evidence that had come to light only after Nixon had resigned. The interviews themselves are intense, albeit short- Nixon cause Frost to stumble. In fact, the first few interviews are rocky for Frost, to say the least, as Nixon is able to enter into soliloquy upon soliquly outlining his achievements.
While not a failure by any means, Frost/Nixon fails to capture the true underdog energy of Frost, and at no point did I find myself truly awed, or even remotely moved. It’s a strictly by-the-numbers political drama, effectively photographed, yet the obvious influence of its previous incarnation as a play (the playwright, Peter Morgan, penned the film’s script) saps a key amount of visual energy. Frank Langella, who earned an Academy nomination for “Best Actor”, is compelling as the bully (ignoring obvious physical differences), and pulls off the sad puppy look when he is at last trounced, but I have to believe (and hope) that the actual events weren’t so pathetically cliched.
