Frost / Nixon

The Ms. and I rented this film last Wednesday. It tells the story of the famous interview between English talk show host David Frost and then-disgraced former President Richard Nixon. Having recently resigned the office of the Presidency as a result of the Watergate investigation, Richard Nixon agrees to the interview in the hopes of exonerating himself and allowing him to get back into public life. David Frost pursues the interview to boost his struggling career, so that he can rejoin the New York social elite life. Originally intended to merely provide ratings and entertainment, Frost's chosen advisers quickly convince him to give Tricky Dick the trial he never had as a result of Ford's pardon.

The best part about the film, to me, was the casting. Frank Langella made Nixon come alive in wonderful layers even for someone like myself who was not alive during Vietnam and never had the visceral connection to that era of American politics. Michael Sheen's David Frost made a wonderful transition from self-absorbed pretty boy to down on his luck scrappy entrepreneur and finally to serious investigative newsman. Kevin Bacon and Oliver Platt's characters were wonderful foils, with Platt's easy likeability and gregariousness highlighting Bacon's stoicism and devotion.

My only gripe was the lack of character development of the women in the film. The character of Carolina Cushing played by the beautiful and talented Rebecca Hall was certainly a delight to watch, but we never really got to know her at all. We never found out how or why she was able to drop whatever it was she did for a living and come with David. We really never saw anything of her at all when Frost wasn't in the frame. She was the silent one dimensional support character, the lovely bird supporting her man. That seemed a little disingenuous. The same could be said for Nixon's wife. There were some wonderful moments where I could sense the resentment and frustration building inside of her at the choices her husband has made, but right when it seemed like time for her to have some good script time, it was cut to the next scene.

All in all, it's a film worth renting any day. I recommend it to anyone in their mid-twenties to try and get an insight into the boiling resentment and anger there was for President Nixon at the time. The film also serves to three-dimensionalize Nixon to a degree, in the sense that he becomes a tragic figure who is mastered by his inner demons as opposed to a mindless servant of greed and evil.