Frost/Nixon

It's a movie with the stolid title Frost/Nixon, and it's about a series of interviews that aired in 90-minute segments in 1977 between British celebrity interviewer David Frost and the disgraced former President Richard Nixon. Sounds like stuff that PBS might have taken a pass on for Masterpiece Theater, right? Wrong, say most critics, who have bestowed nearly undiluted acclaim on it. "Neither the title nor the subject matter prepares you for the pure fun of Frost/Nixon," writes Philip Kennicott in the Washington Post. "It's hard to imagine how a film built around one-on-one interviews could be entertaining, but Frost/Nixon could not be more enthralling" echoes Claudia Puig in USA Today. And Joe Morgenstern assures readers in The Wall Street Journal: "It's a movie in the fullest sense, entertaining and instructive in equal measure." And while Michael Sheen receives fine notices for his performance as Frost, Frank Langella receives passionate raves for his performance as NIxon. "The movie totally belongs to Langella, who captures Nixon's basso rumble and stooped shoulders perfectly - but also his piercing intelligence," says Lou Lumenick in the New York Post. "Something remarkable happens" towards the end of the film, writes Morgenstern in the WSJ. "Langella the actor starts to vanish, and he's replaced by the spectral presence of a once-omnipotent chief of state contemplating, in pitiless close-ups, the nature of his deeds and the depth of his fall." Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune predicts that Langella's performance "is destined for an Oscar nomination." And Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News thinks he deserves to win. "Langella does the finest movie acting of the season," he concludes. And Kennicott in the Washington Post puts it more tersely: "As Nixon," he writes, "Frank Langella is perfection." Kenneth Turan thinks that director Ron Howard, who was playing Richie Cunningham on Happy Days when the actual interviews aired, should not be overlooked when accolades are inevitably handed out. "Frost/Nixon," he sums up, "wouldn't have succeeded as well as it does without his experience, his professionalism and his skills."