Frost/Nixon (08)
directed by Ron Howard
***1/4
Opie Taylor's latest outing is based on a politically-charged stage play. It shows.
It does have an impressive cast, including fine performances by Frank Langella and Michael Sheen (who also starred in the playwright's last script, The Queen). Unfortunately, most of the other actors (including Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, Kevin Bacon and Sam Rockwell) are tragically under-used.
It also has some compelling scenes, like the drunken midnight call from Nixon to Frost. Far more often, though, it has lifeless scenes which transcend, for moments, their ordinariness. This is the flaw in Peter Morgan's scripts: they rely so much on their characters' celebrity that, if these characters were instead named John Doe and Jane Smith (instead of Richard Nixon or Queen Elizabeth), the film might be so boring as to question its own existence. In Frost/Nixon, as in The Queen, what saves the film from failure is a set of wonderful performances, a few stirring scenes, a lingering sense that what you just saw had historical effects...and, of course, the fact that these are celebrities, after all.
The curious elements that Morgan brings keep things slightly interesting, though. He is a playwright at heart, after all, and an Elizabethan at that. He tosses in sections of documentary news footage at beginning, end and key points, as if they were The Chorus. He throws in an interview from time to time, as a stand-in for soliloquies. And the most fascinating parts of the film are the ones you saw coming a mile away — it's just the delivery that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Frank Langella is quite impressive as Nixon: far better, in my opinion than the Tony Hopkins portrayal back in 1995, much more complex, believable and sophisticated. Michael Sheen at first had me fooled that he was just playing a dumber verson of himself; after time, it became obvious that his performance of talk show host David Frost was really spot on, with equal shades whimsy and mysteriousness.
In the end, this is not a film that I would consider one of the best of the year. It has its moments, to be sure. But after a year or so, my guess is that it will be all but forgotten by most everyone except for the production staff involved. Does that mean you should skip it? Ehhhh, no, actually. It's worth a watch once-round for the highlights I mentioned above. Just don't expect to return to it a decade from now and discover vintaged wine.
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