Frost/Nixon
Dir: Ron Howard
Rating: 3.5
Universal Studios
122 Minutes
No one can know what it is to resign the American Presidency. Considering only one person has ever had to bear that ignominious burden, the statement must be as true today as it was when it was said by former president Richard M. Nixon 30 years ago.
Director Ron Howard is back, with an incarnation of the "Honorable" Mr. Nixon, one who is dealing with a life that will never cease being about a series of crucial moments ( or "mistakes," as he called them) in his political career. The role has been taken up numerous times, the best attempt of which will forever be Oliver Stone and Anthony Hopkins' spellbinding and impacting Nixon. Howard's able foray into the breach presents us with Nixon at the very crux of his infamy, the days and months directly after Watergate. We meet Mr. Nixon, an undeniably miraculous Frank Langella, and we also meet charismatic and cutesy-poo British television personality David Frost (Michael Sheen). The movie in fact centers on the unlikely duel between Frost and Nixon, screenplay adapted from his own stage play by The Queen's Peter Morgan.
And, not too surprisingly for Nixon connoisseurs, I mean "duel" in the most literal sense. It was always said about Richard M. Nixon that he did not have opponents but enemies. It was exactly his "take no prisoners," sweaty-upper-lip mentality that gave him the edge required for such a self-professed "failing loser" to ascend to the highest position in our country's precarious hierarchy.
We begin with Frost as a playboy "television host" who has a bit of his own pride to defend. After years of foiled success, Frost is left jilted by the Bitch Showbiz and ends up hardly being able to afford his lavish lifestyle. During Nixon's resignation speech, the idea swells in his head to interview the man being watched by 400 million viewers worldwide. Why? Well, perhaps it's to finally dredge out the confession/apology Nixon never had to give and that the American public needed to hear... or perhaps it's to kick-start Frost's own fledgling career and reputation. Throughout much of the film, the rivals are nowhere near matched. Nixon is the heavyweight here, the "master operator" as he's called by Frost's producer, and Frost is... busy entertaining lovely ladies and attending movie premieres.
Howard deftly constructs the film, along with help--no doubt--from screenwriter Morgan, as the very duel that the Frost-Nixon interview must have seemed to all involved and to the country at large, a joke, as a flailing Frost indeed doing what he could to put himself back in the limelight. When Frost is finally able to muster up the crew and--at least in part--the funds necessary to put the Nixon interview together, we see his scenes alongside Nixon as no-holds-barred boxing matches. It's the subtleties of the film's direction and impeccable acting that gives us this obvious likeness, as evinced in one scene when Frost's team of researchers pass by Nixon's aides--including a then young Diane Sawyer--and both squads take a brief moment to leer at the opposite side with the best of death stares.
It's Nixon's ability to shrug off any sign of offense by the intimidated and ill-focused Frost that allows us to see how he became President in the first place, and I applaud Howard for allowing us to see this side of Nixon: the articulate, concentrated, and even charismatic Nixon that we rarely hear about or see when overhearing insults made about "fuckin' Nixon" from parents or older friends.
Tides shift, however, and after a strange--possibly hallucinatory--coaching session by Nixon himself over a drunken phone call to Frost; the erstwhile TV host finds the strength inside of himself to make the fourth round a rousing upset. Not to mention the fact that Frost discovers that suddenly everything in his life--his money, his career, and now his reputation beyond just the journalistic community--rides on this series of interviews. It's during this changeover that we also finally discover, as is hinted all throughout, that perhaps Nixon's greatest foe is indeed himself. Perhaps he simply couldn't handle ever winning, he needed the challenge, the battle more than the win. The two characters become mirror images at this point--Frost, earlier in the film, admits to a lovely lass that "Being busy is more interesting than being still" and Nixon is forever lamenting the fact that now that he's retired, he has nothing to do but play golf, a detestable pastime at that.
Thus, the final round comes, and we know now that Frost wants to win and that Nixon, by all accounts, wants to lose. Whether or not he finally does give in and give Frost and the American people--the worldwide public at the time, let's be honest--what they wanted and deserved from a man who forever devalued the American system of government, is less important than what the film explains is Nixon's lasting legacy: the fact that he will always be remembered not for his accomplishments, but for his failures, for not being a winner but for being the ultimate loser he seemed to always aspire to be.
The lasting legacy of Frost/Nixon, a film that, is far more lukewarm than its volatile subject matter, will certainly be the awards that are sure to come the way of Mr. Langella. There's no question that--alongside such other heavyweights as Sheen, Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt and Kevin Bacon--Langella will be the one to beat when the Oscar competition comes to a head later this winter. I suppose that, in the end, Nixon may have been the World's Greatest Loser, but Langella is set to become the year's Greatest Winner.
by Mathew Klickstein