Movies that are based real political events haven't proved too popular at the box office. People seem to be so overloaded with it on the news and in every day life that they don't want to pay to see more of it in a cinema. You can't really blame people, but it's often a shame since a lot of these movies are very worthy of the time and money.
That seems to be mainly the case with movies based on the war in Iraq (examples of financially disappointing/failed movies being Lions for Lambs, Rendition and W., to name but a few) and those based on political events past seem to be popular enough. Frost/Nixon is one of those - a film about one of the most watched TV interviews in history.
It was a difficult thing to get right on film, but director Ron Howard, screenwriter Peter Morgan (who also wrote the stage play of the event), and particularly the lead performers make this captivating, riveting stuff that should go unmatched in tension for quite a while in the cinema calendar.
Frost/Nixon is a film that dramatizes the famous interviews between former US President Richard Nixon and TV presenter and interviewer David Frost. It examines Frost's determination to get the interview scheduled, from coming up with the idea right up to the actual interviews themselves. It shows the way in which the two men play off of one another in a tense battle of intellect, charm, and wit.
What is always going to give a film like this a sense of credibility is that it's based on a true story - and everybody knows for a fact that it was. This is not one of those films where the director gives you with a subtitle at the beginning, "based on true events," and general audiences usually just have to take their word for it.
This is about one of the most famous interviews, one of the most famous events, ever aired on television. Although the film does dramatize it to make it more exciting and tense to watch, the truth behind it still gives it a backbone of credibility.
What's strange about the film is that even though it's sold in the advertisements as being only about the interviews themselves — and thankfully that is what it is built up to and kept at the heart of it — there's about 30-40 minutes beforehand of examination of what it's like to work in television. It's very reminiscent of the 1976 film Network in that way.
Article comments
1 - Douglas Mays
I am old enuf to remember when Nixon was considered a 'bad' president...
DM
2 - Douglas Mays
I should see the flicker but the only thing holding me back is that I saw/remember the actual interviews.
A good biopic type thing I hear. For those on the wrong side of 50... hehe
DM