Frost/Nixon (2008)
Feb 27th, 2009 by Ashley
Exciting drama and excellent performances.
From the beginning of the movie, one can sense that it was indeed adapted from a play. The sharp and dense dialogue prefigured the intensity throughout the entire film. Michael Sheen delivered Davis Frost’s transformation from his initial ambition and ignorance to his later acknowledgment of the impact Watergate had and the cruciality of the interview. Frank Langella’s portrayal of Nixon was powerful and I can’t help but thinking that Nixon was really something (and he had to be).
The movie in all was very entertaining. I think even people who are not familiar with the history can enjoy the movie as long as they like a good drama.
side notes:
The film was shot in a form of pseudo-documentary. At the beginning, I had some difficulty adjusting because it was too documentary-esque. When it’s showing the interview of Jack Brennan, Nixon’s post presidential chief of staff, I thought “it’s Kevin Bacon, not Jack Brennan!” The same goes with John Birt/Matthew Macfadyen as well. And because of that, the movie attracted some attacks on its accuracy. Mostly something minor, like the imaginary late night phone call and the victory of David Frost. However, one has to look beyond history, in which truth is more than usual a mystery, and see this movie (or play) as a creative work. The writer used the event as a vehicle to present a riveting story in which Frost triumphed the cold Nixon in a fierce mind boxing when in reality many claimed that the “confession” was carefully planned and was not so much a mental victory for Frost.
This reminds me of John Steinbeck’s The Grape of Wrath, a fiction, in which Steinbeck vividly portrayed the struggles and deprivation of the migrant workers which outraged many people because it was too close to the truth and they cannot handle the accusation.
The movie also reminds me of Gerald Ford’s obituary on the Economist. (a rather enjoyable read. pity it’s for subscription only.)