Frost/Nixon

A tagline for the big-screen version of Frost/Nixon claims that the movie is "an epic battle for the truth." However, in director Ron Howard's clumsy hands, the movie is little more than a series of close-ups and a ponderous study of the effects of boredom. There is nothing epic about the story and Howard does nothing to capture the supposed immensity of the movie's subject matter. Frost/Nixon is just another reminder that Howard's abilities as a director are incredibly limited and that his filmmaking style is among the most ineffectively simplistic of all the big-name directors working in Hollywood today.

Adapted from his own play of the same name, Peter Morgan's screenplay is really just a lazy re-enactment of events already captured on a camera, with a few behind-the-scenes moments littered throughout to add depth to the characters. Except that none of these scenes add anything to the story, other than piling on more and more facts that simply make the two hour running time feel more like an essay on The Evils of Nixon than an insightful movie about the power of the media.

Between this movie and the similarly unimpressive The Queen, Peter Morgan earns my vote as the most over-rated screenwriter still getting work. His scripts for these two movies have taken true stories that are barely relevant anymore and found the stuffiest and most unimaginative way to approach them: as a dry depiction of real-life events with an eye on simply stating facts, rather than attempting to get inside the heads of the characters.

That Frost/Nixon combines the questionable talents of Morgan and Howard is reason enough to be wary, but it is the way that these two minds complement each other that ultimately unravels the movie. As writer and director of a story that was already partially written and directed more than thirty years ago, Morgan and Howard have found a project where they feel it is perfectly acceptable to embrace their laziness. There are the occasional behind-the-scenes jokes that are a bit funny and the sporadic camera move that is more alive than dead, but beyond these minor achievements, Frost/Nixon has all the energy and imagination of a dusty text book.

Reprising their roles from the London and Broadway versions of the play, Michael Sheen and Frank Langella play the two title characters with a justifiable amount of confidence. Sheen is passable in the role of David Frost, but Langella is the highlight of the movie, immersing himself in the decrepit frame of Richard Nixon. Langella's performance does border on mere impersonation at times, but he remains committed to the character and he provides the movie with a much-needed jolt of entertaining vigour, as well as a few moments of welcome humour.

With two formidable actors going head-to-head for a sizable chunk of the movie, Frost/Nixon could have been a powerful celebration of on-screen presence and brawny charisma. But this is a Ron Howard movie and so much of the narrative attention is given to clearly drawing the lines between hero and villain. Howard does not know how to illustrate shades of gray and so he enjoys exploiting the extreme polarity of a David vs. Goliath story. The one movie of his that I truly love and regard as his unabashed masterpiece is Apollo 13, which does not have a traditional villain at all, but rather represents antagonism through the intangible dangers of outer space.

In Frost/Nixon, Howard makes the assumption that the audience will root for Frost simply because he is the "hero" and that they will oppose Nixon simply because he is the "villain." But Frost comes across as a cocky, careless individual in over his head, so I felt no emotional engagement when it came time for him to face financial and personal obstacles. Nixon comes across as a smart and self-absorbed man interested only in money and his public image. There's not a lot to like about either man in the context of the movie, but at least Nixon can tell a joke.

Without caring about either character, I kept feeling as though Morgan and Howard were telling me what to feel, as opposed to making me feel it on my own. It is very clear from the beginning who we are supposed to be rooting for, but none of it rings true. The movie is so small-minded that it never manages to break free of the shackles of its subject matter. It always feels like a re-enactment of a real-life event and nothing more. If the idea is to simply show us history through the same lens that it was viewed back in 1977, then what is the point? By boxing themselves in with an indolent approach to the material, Morgan and Howard have created a narrative vacuum that sucks out all of the dramatic urgency of the tale, leaving behind a dull shell of lifeless expression.