Ron Howard’s achievement must be acknowledged- more than perhaps any other filmmaker, he has found the ultimate cinematic style to con people into thinking there watching an important movie. His films are rarely boring, and are often very good, but are never really profound, or important, or even memorable. He’s caused me to give Frost/Nixon a three and half star rating, pretty impressive for a film I have contempt for.
This is a film that pretends to be important, that states that it is about a subject and then discusses the topic hardly all. The subject in question is the role of the media in politics, specifically, the 1977 serious of interviews between British journalist Sir David Frost (Michael Sheen) and disgraced U.S. President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella).
The thin plot of the film regards Nixon and his aids believing that Frost will be an easy mark for the former President to rehabilitate his reputation as a statesmen. Since the trailer gives away the climax of the movie, I don’t think I’m giving much away when I reveal that for the most part, Nixon failed.
The movie, written by Peter Morgan, who adapted his own stage play, spends far too much time with Frost, who the picture makes out to be a somewhat hapless, Barbara Walters-like journalist, neglecting the fact that he had in fact interviewed several major political figures before Nixon. Michael Sheen also chooses to play Frost as a lightweight who is in over his head. Sheen’s performance is a major flaw of the movie- he doesn’t look or sound much like the real Frost and his character comes off as such a dimwit that it’s hard to care what happens to him.
Frank Langella’s Nixon, on the other hand, is another story. This is one of the best performances of the year, perhaps the best. Langella seems to become Nixon before our eyes. He looks like Nixon, he speaks like Nixon, and for all intents and purposes he is Nixon. Comparing him to Sir Anthony Hopkins performance in Oliver Stone’s 1995 film and the difference is like night and day. Hopkins did a good job, but you were always aware that he was acting. Here, you just believe that you are looking at the 37th President, who somehow wandered into a movie.
But all the insight comes from Langella, not Howard. Because the movie is supposedly historically accurate, Howard occasionally uses a documentary style in which characters speak as though they are being interviewed on 16mm. Is this supposed to make us think the movie is "real"?
And besides, what is the point of any of this? There are other and better films about politics and the media (Network and Good Night, and Good Luck come to mind). Those films actually bother to take a position on their subject. But Howard is so set on pleasing everyone, of offering no offense to only the most sycophantic Nixon supporter that the movie says very little at all. It is not boring and technically flawless, but it lacks one element crucial to great art- daring. If you want to see a well made, perfectly safe movie that appears to be about something but really isn’t, with one brilliant performance, Frost/Nixon is the movie for you.
Frost/Nixon (2008)