Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon is a 2008 film based on a play about David Frost's 1977 series of interviews with Richard Nixon. Ron Howard directs. Frank Langella is Richard Nixon and Michael Sheen is David Frost. The Younger Son gave this to me for my birthday, and we watched it tonight. I remember well the events that led up to the story told in this film. It makes me mad all over again. And apparently we learned nothing from it, because the Bush years were 8 long years of presidential abuse of power.

trailer:


Roger Ebert says, "the film really comes down to these two compelling intense performances, these two men with such deep needs entirely outside the subjects of the interviews." CNN calls it "a compelling account, shrewdly bolstered with lively actors in both corners of the ring". The New York Times says,

Anchored by its first-rate leads, who originated the roles on the London stage — Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost — the movie is a talkathon embellished with camera movements.

Rolling Stone closes with this:

Frost/Nixon, one of the year's best films, far exceeds its roots as docudrama. It cuts to the core of a toxic culture that sees politics as show business, a culture still all too recognizable as our own.

Variety describes it as

an effective, straightforward bigscreen version of Peter Morgan’s shrewd stage drama about the historic 1977 TV interview in which Richard Nixon brought himself down once again.