|
FROST/NIXON (FILM) Send This Review to a Friend
Frank Langella, although not really resembling Richard Nixon, is such a fine actor that he seems to become Nixon before our eyes. It is a matter of posture, facial expression, and the suggestion of seething anger and bitterness beneath the attempt to look presidential even after having been forced from office as a result of the Watergate scandal. Langella gets it totally right in “Frost/Nixon,” written by Peter Morgan based on his play and directed by Ron Howard, who has opened up the action just enough to make it work on film but without anything that would detract from the confrontation that is the nub of the story.
Langella gives one of the year’s best performances, and so does Michael Sheen as David Frost, a role Sheen played on stage along with Langella. Frost, depicted as a television lightweight, stakes his all, reputation and finances, in landing Nixon for a now-celebrated TV interview. His aim: to get Nixon to admit wrongdoing. On the other hand, Nixon enjoys the idea of combat and the hefty sum promised, but is determined to outfox his adversary.
The film’s tension lies in the confrontation that shapes up in the on-camera jockeying. In the end, as history has recorded, Frost did get Nixon to make admissions, and Langella is simply brilliant in portraying the ex-president cornered, yet still defiant. While the film doesn’t seek sympathy for Nixon, it does portray him as a person, not a symbol or caricature.
By the pardon his successor, Gerald Ford, gave Nixon, the culprit escaped punishment and spent his ensuing years trying to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the public and history. “Frost/Nixon” counterbalances that effort by recalling the man, his crimes, for which he faced certain impeachment if he didn’t resign, and a set of TV interviews that at least partially wrung some truth out of him, while turning out to be a much-needed career booster for Frost. A Universal Pictures release.
|