ViewGuide

Created Dec 13, 2008 08:47PM PST • Edited Jul 23, 2019 05:34AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Funny and sad in equal measures, this brilliant movie brings to life the media event that put a postscript on one of the saddest chapters in American history.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Tour de force acting by two stellar combatants.

   Frank Langella’s basso profundo voice and hulking presence cuttingly reveal Dick Nixon’s nasty narcissism. Performances like this are why Best Actor awards exist, as evidenced by the Tony he won for this role. Broadway actors all too rarely bring their great roles to the silver screen. Thankfully Langella didn’t have this one taken from him for the likes of Nicholson or Beatty.

   Michael Sheen – not of the American Sheens – uncannily becomes yet another famous British personality. His Tony Blair in The Queen was spot on. Here he nails the callow narcissist Frost, capturing as well the frenetic entrepreneurial energy of this TV creature.

   Sam Rockwell also jumps off the screen as passionate journalist James Reston, Jr. Ranting like Dennis Miller, his righteous anger evocatively channels the loathing that much of Reston’s generation felt for Nixon.

   It is a measure of the heavyweight acting at the top of the credits that the performances by the rest of the cast barely rate mention, though Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon, Matthew Macfadyen, and Joe Spano are all superb.

   And let’s not forget the “Where’s Waldo?” of any Ron Howard movie, finding his family members in supporting roles. Apparently father Rance Howard was in the cast, though I didn’t spot him. Brother Clint Howard was frequently noticeable as a crew member during the taping of the interviews.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Brilliantly made by Ron Howard: Keeping the intimacy of the play from which this was adapted, he niftily adds vivid production values and a level of verisimilitude that only the highest quality films deliver.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Great 4.0

    Peter Morgan deserves to be followed. His script for The Queen was brilliant. As a Brit that was perhaps not so surprising. But Frost/Nixon? How does one of Her Majesty’s subjects absorb enough about America to write this play and movie? The guy’s a genius.

    Plus he’s damn funny. More than few of the movie’s laugh lines hit their marks, though some are apparently direct Nixon quotes. The joke’s often on him, just one more example of poor old self-pitying Nixon not catching a break.

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.3

    Cover the eyes and ears of political neophytes. Dick Nixon in full rant is a profane sight for the ages.

17. Sex Innocent 1.2

18. Violence Gentle 1.0

19. Rudeness Salty 1.8

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

    Tricky Dick’s profound failures of character poisoned the faith of generations. Because this American president proved to be a bad apple, his successors labor under suspicion. In turn, Nixon must forever pay historical penance for this original sin.

    Nixon the historical actor aside, how accurate is the movie to the historical reality? One key scene – Nixon’s drunken midnight call to Frost – never happened in reality according to Frank Langella. So that pushes up the circoreality score.

    As for the accuracy of the interviews, tough to tell without screening the original footage. Interestingly, I’ve not been able to find statements by Ron Howard or Peter Morgan about whether they modified the interview dialog. So given the cynicism that Nixon’s presidency instilled in me, I’m awarding the movie a 1.5x circoreality score.

    Elizabeth Drew, who covered Watergate for the New Yorker, takes a harsher view, calling the movie A Dishonorable Distortion of History. I’m guessing she’d rate it a full 2x circumstantial reality.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.5

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0