Frost/Nixon (15)

Alison Rowat's Review

Quite the week for political anoraks. In Washington, history is made by a certain African-American president. In London, Ken Clarke, big beast of yore, returns. And in the cinema, two outstanding dramas arrive to put intelligent talk back into the talkies.

Milk, the story of the first openly gay man elected to public office in the US, is reviewed left. Here we say hello, good evening and welcome to an account of the television interview that made a journalist’s reputation and finally destroyed a president’s complacency.

In America alone, audiences of 45 million-plus watched David Frost go mano a mano with the mind behind Watergate. Only a live wedding between Paris Hilton and a back-from-the-dead Elvis would attract those kind of numbers today. Which makes a critic ponder, in a Frost-like way, whether a three-decades-old interview, made into a play, then turned into a film, has what it takes to hold a modern audience. In the hands of director Ron Howard, Michael Sheen (playing Frost) and Frank Langella (Nixon) the straight answer is “yes”.

Frost/Nixon is the political interview recast as gladiatorial combat – David the light entertainment host takes on the Goliath of postwar American politics. Though there is a heavy use of dramatic licence, this is the nearest thing to a master class in interviewing since Paxo stuffed Michael Howard.

When the interview took place in 1977, Nixon had been out of office for three years. Frost was already a media player. He was not, as the screenplay by Peter Morgan (also author of the play) has it, in some kind of light entertainment green room, waiting for his big break. But the writer of The Queen and The Last King of Scotland is a past master at turning political drama into riveting cinema even if, as in the film’s late-night phone call between Frost and Nixon, he has to deploy sheer invention.

With Nixon needing the money, his agent (played by Toby Jones) tells him the interview will be a pushover (“It will be like a big, wet kiss”) and Frost sets about raising the cash. Morgan even manages to make the setting up of a syndication deal seem exciting.

So the teams take shape. In the white corner, on the side of truth, justice and big ratings are Frost, his producer John Birt (Matthew McFadyen) and the American journalistic muscle, expertly played by Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt. In the red and shamed corner are Nixon, his chief of staff (Kevin Bacon) and assorted minders. The tone is very West Wing, complete with good gags and a frenetic pace. But when the camera starts to roll on the interview, it all comes down to Frost/Nixon, Sheen/Langella.

Turning a play into a picture can make for dull cinema, as was seen with The History Boys. What seems intimate and alive on the stage can look static on screen. Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13) avoids that trap by giving the interview a properly cinematic build-up with simmering drama and characters dashing about in glam locations. By the time we arrive at the big sit down – it’s 50 minutes in before the first interview – the audience is primed and the cameras are ready for those vital close-ups.

Frost is seen to flounder at first. It’s hardly a flattering portrait, but on the whole the screenplay is hugely kind to the old trouper. Michael Sheen, that shape-shifter, puts in another flawless turn, only being outshone by Langella’s eerily convincing Nixon (even if this, in turn, pales besides Anthony Hopkins’s version in Oliver Stone’s biopic). Both Langella and Sheen played the roles on stage, and their ease with the characters is obvious.

At close of play it’s television journalism one, scheming politician nil. It’s at this point that Frost/Nixon begins to come across as a period piece. Imagine any interviewer today being given the same kind of access and preparation time enjoyed by Frost’s team. Try to envisage a politician of Nixon’s rank cracking their make-up in the face of tough questioning, never mind issuing a mea culpa. Only in movies can such things happen now.

Paul Greenwood's Review

Playwright Peter Morgan adapts this fine dramatisation of the 1977 television interviews between David Frost and former US president Richard Nixon from his own stage production.

Nixon has been pardoned after his resignation following the Watergate scandal, but lightweight presenter Frost feels he can extract a confession from him.

Nixon thinks it will be a puff piece that he can use as a platform to regain his credibility, while Frost seems to be keen to do it to further his career in America.

But the television networks won't cough up the $500k Nixon is demanding for the interview and during the many weeks of preparation and research, Frost's delegation is still struggling to find funding, with Frost fearing his career will be in tatters.

All this comes before the interviews even begin, and this is when the film really hits its stride, as the head-to-heads make for gripping viewing.

As each man spars for control, Nixon rambling for long stretches to avoid more questions and Frost seeming more and more out of his depth, the tension and sense of history mounts.

The key to the performances is getting under the skins of these men rather than just doing impersonations, and Frank Langella as Nixon manages it from the start, channelling his greed and paranoia to go with his sheer force of personality.

As Frost, Michael Sheen at first suggests that Rory Bremner could have done the job just as well, but as the film progresses he reveals Frost's own intelligence and arrogance.

Ron Howard, always a solid and unflashy director, does well in opening the film up beyond the confines of the play, and he keeps things lively and laced with plenty dark humour.

A wonderful supporting cast adds immensely to the flavour, with fine turns from Kevin Bacon as Nixon's aide and Oliver Platt as Frost's advisor.

And while Nixon may have been the devil, it's the film's great achievement that, much like Oliver Stone's W. last year, it almost leaves you feeling sorry for a broken, lonely old man.