Frost vs Nixon would have been a more apt title for director Ron Howard's powerful screen adaptation of Peter Morgan's play about the famous series of1977 television interviews by David Frost with disgraced U.S. President Richard Nixon. The film draws numerous analogies between the psychological battle being waged during the interviews and sporting confrontations as the participants trade blows. It is an effective ploy by Howard and screenwriter Morgan to introduce dramatic tension to what was a lengthy 28 hours of interviews.
Reprising their stage roles, Michael Sheen and Frank Langella deliver masterful performances as Frost and Nixon. Both interviewer and interviewee have very different motives for the encounter, but each man has a lot at stake, making the outcome critical. Frost/Nixon is both an intense character study of two egotistical men and a fascinating account of an historical event that is given an added perspective with the passage of time.
So ubiquitous a presence has Sir David Frost been for so long that it's hard to conceive of a period when his outsize personality wasn't a daily presence on the British television landscape. But in 1974, when Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal, the career of the 35-year-old Frost was floundering. Reduced to hosting a show in Australia, he was desperately looking for a way back to the top. Nixon, on the other hand, having remained silent for three years, saw these televised interviews, with a man he felt he could easily manipulate, as an opportunity to exonerate himself.
Frost/Nixon focuses on the epic struggle faced by Frost to set up and conduct the interviews. He is aided by the three-man team of British producer John Birt (Matthew Macfadyen), and two Americans, seasoned journalist Bob Zelnick (Oliver Platt) and writer James Reston Jr. (Sam Rockwell). It was a venture that nearly ruined Frost both financially and professionally. Morgan, who collaborated with Sheen on The Queen, captures the charm, determination and desperation of the playboy Frost as he juggles his partying tendencies with a desire to reestablish himself as a legitimate interviewer.
Adapting Morgan's successful play for the screen was quite a feat, but Howard, for who the original interviews were an important landmark in his youth, had a clear vision of how to expand the story. A testament to his accomplishment is the fact that Frost/Nixon never feels like a stageplay. It is though a skillfully crafted drama energized by two compelling characters, brought pulsatingly to life by Sheen and Langella, who's showdown as depicted here is pure and wonderful theatre.
Kevin Murphy
