Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
2/13/08
Anybody
sufficiently interested in politics to be reading this review no doubt
shares a common fantasy. That stinkin’ crook who disgraced the nation
while serving as our Commander in Chief finally gets what he has coming
to him, dragged onto National TV to face a fearless grilling. With
no advisors or spinmeisters to hide behind, asked all the questions the
press was either too fearful or too complicitous in his corruption to pose,
he breaks down and confesses: yes, it’s all true. He was a
power-hungry maniac who warped the US Constitution for his own evil goals.
Decent Americans then celebrate in the streets. Of course, you and
I might argue about who “He” is (Clinton? Bush? A couple decades
ago, Reagan?), but British playwright Peter Morgan was happy to supply
this fantasy masquerading as historical fact with his popular stage play
Frost/Nixon. After successful runs on both sides of the Atlantic,
stars Frank Langella and Michael Sheen reprise their roles in a new film
version directed by Ron Howard. They’re awesome, and the fantasy
the movie’s selling is a formidable one. A certain cinematic inertia
and the nagging sense that this couldn’t possibly be the true story (hint:
it’s not) hold it back, but Frost/Nixon is a solid character study.
Just not necessarily a study of real characters.
In
the aftermath of Watergate, Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) is driven from
power, but his immediate pardon by new President Gerald Ford prevents a
trial that would bring his true role in the case to light. Driven
into California exile, he begins to plot a comeback. Meanwhile, British
talk show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) languishes in an exile of his
own after the cancellation of his New York show, now hosting programs in
England and Australia but dreaming of a big “get” that would put him back
on top. While watching footage of his resignation and departure from
the White House, Frost has the perfect idea: Nixon! So begins
a long negotiation process in which he is forced to pony up $600,000.00
of his own money to get the ex-Pres to agree. Nixon’s Chief of Staff
Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon) believes Frost to be a lightweight who’ll be
no match for Tricky Dick, setting up an interview that will salvage his
reputation and lead to a return to East Coast power-brokering. Frost
just wants to put on a good show and assembles a team led by Producer John
Birt (Matthew Macfayden) and researchers Bob Zelnick (Oliver Platt) and
James Reston Jr. (Sam Rockwell) while spending most of his time partying
with girlfriend Caroline Cushing (Rebecca Hall). But once the interviews
begin, Brennan’s gut is proven correct: Nixon dodges, filibusters
and evades his way out of Frost’s every attempt to expose his misdeeds.
Is there any way a lowly celebrity can outwit the former leader of the
Free World?
As
the only man ever to resign the Presidency, Nixon has inspired a complex
mixture of contempt and pity in filmmakers for years. Oliver Stone’s
remarkable Nixon was probably the last word on that subject, but
Frost/Nixon revisits the talking points. Nixon was sneaky
and corrupt, but he was also an awkward man desperate to “fit in” who lashed
out when he couldn’t. We can argue the truth of that image, but like
Anthony Hopkins before him, Langella is excellent at hitting those notes.
If his Nixon impression leans a bit to the sad and beaten-down side, that’s
an essential part of what the movie is selling: the hope that no
matter how much That Bastard gets away with, he can never really be happy
in Post-Presidential exile. Sheen, on the other hand, is a memorably
lightweight Frost; all celebrity and no depth, we actually get the sense
that this guy belonged in his job introducing escape artists and interviewing
the Bee Gees rather than grilling Presidents, but the story makes him Our
Only Chance At the Truth. Once those stakes are set, Sheen, most
famous for his role as Tony Blair in the Morgan-penned The
Queen, does a great job of trying to rise to the occasion without ever
seeming like he really could. The supporting cast also gives it everything
they’ve got, with Rockwell getting a rare chance to be totally normal as
the team member most invested in bringing Nixon down and Bacon his usual
excellent self as the ex-POTU’s almost pathologically loyal right-hand.
The
problem with Frost/Nixon is that it’s obsessed with shoehorning
the real-life interviews into a David and Goliath story that they don’t
really support. Admissions made by Nixon throughout the real process
are backloaded into one final interview (after which no one would possibly
have been watching if the previous nights had been as bland and inconclusive
as they’re presented here), where the Little Host Who Could gets one final
chance to bring the Great Man to his knees. Since the interviews
were taped over 20 meetings, the structure of having Frost get routed,
take a break, get routed again, and so on becomes tiresome. It’s
ironic that the time the two men spend together in front of the camera
is actually the movie’s least interesting, particularly when Morgan parses
Nixon’s words to make them indistinguishable from those another ex-President
might speak (hint: his father’s name is George Bush).
And
it’s telling that the moment when it most comes to life is one that’s made
up: a late-night call from a drunken Nixon to Frost on the eve of
the final taping. Here, completely freed from any historical record,
the two men who’re not quite really Frost and Nixon get to go at each other
like the movie characters they so clearly are. Langella is tremendous
as he brings the full weight of Nixon’s bitter neediness to bear trying
to psych up the beaten-down adversary he secretly admires. It’s an
awesome scene and I really wish the movie had more like it.
But
Morgan and Howard don’t do a very good job making this stagy material cinematic.
A really bad idea frames the whole thing like a cable documentary, with
footage of the actors as real people being “interviewed” about the events
we’re seeing. If it had been the real people, that might have been
a gutsy creative choice. With actors playing them, it’s distancing
and weird, and proceeds from a VERY faulty presumption that talking head
interviews are more interesting than traditional narrative.
Frost/Nixon
is so far from a great movie it actually suffers for being one of the five
nominated Best Pictures for the Academy Awards. And it would actually
be more entertaining if it were simply about Interviewer X and Disgraced
President Y, when it wouldn’t have to bear the weight of comparison to
the real-life story it aggrandizes. But taken on its’ own terms,
it’s an entertaining little diversion and a fine showcase for two actors
who’ve played these roles enough times to have gotten REALLY good at them.
Myself, when the Ex-Pres of my choice goes down, I’m hoping it’s a lot
harder than this, but a few genuinely tough questions would be a nice start. |
