LFF. Frost/Nixon.

"As well as creeping impatience, there is a weird sense of deja vu watching the talky, inert drama which opens tonight's London film festival - about David Frost's legendary TV interviews in 1977 with the disgraced ex-president Richard Nixon." The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw: "Its screenwriter, Peter Morgan, gave us The Queen, starring Michael Sheen as Tony Blair and Helen Mirren as the monarch. Now, once again, Sheen plays a media-savvy and weirdly depthless figure facing off against a shrewd, but wounded head of state.... Frank Langella rolls over Sheen like a tank in a way that Nixon failed to do with Frost in art or in life."

Updated through 10/16.

The London Times, co-presenter of the festival, doesn't have a review of Frost/Nixon (site) posted yet, but does have a sort of promotional package. Director Ron Howard recalls the moment "I knew what I wanted my next film to be." Ben Hoyle talks with Frost, who "has seen the film twice and thinks that it is 'brilliant.' However, he regrets that 'to build up the underdog thing,' Peter Morgan's script downplays what was already a distinguished television career before the interviews." And Tim Teeman, who finds the film "as electrifying as the stage version," interviews Langella.

Updates: "Howard's hands-off direction makes for an oddly bloodless viewing experience, with a lot of talk standing in for any fresh perspective (or frankly, much of a perspective at all) on the events," writes Guy Lodge at In Contention. "To be honest, we could have seen this coming. It's difficult to think of a director less-suited to take on the intricate, minutiae-obsessed writing of Peter Morgan than Howard - a director who, even in his finest films, has always been interested in the big picture first, with characters serving history rather than the other way round." Via Jeffrey Wells.

"As someone who was a huge admirer of the London stage production back in 2006, I had concerns that many of qualities that made it work so brilliantly on stage could be ironed out for the big screen," writes Ambrose Heron. "However, it is to the film's great credit that director Ron Howard and Morgan (who wrote the screenplay) have not only preserved the insight and charm of the play but made it work in a different medium."

"Like the other election year release about a modern Republican president, W., this one isn't out to 'get' its much vilified subject as much as it tries to cast him as something of a tragic victim of his own limitations and foibles - tragic for the perpetrator and his country alike," writes Variety's Todd McCarthy. "Recreating the role for which he won a Tony Award last year, Langella doesn't instantaneously convince as the 37th president the moment you first see him, in the wake of Nixon's resignation in disgrace on Aug 9, 1974 - the voice seems a bit langorous, the mannerisms a tad forced, his features a shade Mediterranean. But over the course of the piece, the many facets of the performance merge into an impeccably observed characterization of a man whose accomplishments, intellect and aggressive use of power never entirely overcame an abiding inferiority complex and propensity for self-sabotage."

For the Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt, this is "less a political movie than a boxing film without the gloves.... In this corner is a wily master politician who knows every trick of spin and manipulation to overwhelm an opponent. In that corner is a glib British talk show host, selected by members of the Nixon camp who sense that a softball interview with this lightweight nonjournalist might sufficiently rehabilitate Nixon so he can return to public life. However, this approach must overemphasize Frost's playboy aspect while ignoring the fact he was a Cambridge graduate, a host and producer of the hugely popular political satire TV show called That Was the Week That Was and had interviewed major political leaders on British TV. OK, he's no Mike Wallace, but Frost is a far cry from the carnival performer he at times acts like in Frost/Nixon."

And the London Times has now posted a review. "Ron Howard turns this contest between Michael Sheen's playboy and Frank Langella's marvellous old creep into one of the most compelling cinema waltzes I've yet seen," writes James Christopher. "The build-up to the final confrontation is an absolutely electric piece of cinema, not least because there are vertiginous moments where history is being reminted before your eyes.... The surprise, perhaps, is how much sympathy Howard's film generates for Langella's broody, tight-arsed, antihero."

Howard "is often seen as a middlebrow director, even a bland one. But his unostentatious approach proves just right for this project," argues Sheila Johnston in the Telegraph.

Updates, 10/16: "While Frost/Nixon has its problems, attracting awards attention for Frank Langella isn't one of them," writes Fionnuala Halligan for Screen Daily. "[T]he actor doesn't deliver an impersonation or a caricature – he looks nothing like Nixon, nor does he sound like him. He rightly treats Morgan's script as a gift to an actor and runs with Tricky Dicky as far as he can go."

"In one way, film is the perfect medium for a drama that ultimately hinges on a single close-up when, after all his evasions and self-deceptions, Nixon finally accepts guilt for his role in the Watergate scandal," writes Geoffrey Macnab in the Independent. "Nixon, played with real gravitas and pathos by Frank Langella, is suddenly seen at his most vulnerable. His face is a map of conflicting emotions. Seen on a big screen, this moment has a power that would be hard to match either on stage or TV. However, the rest of the film rarely matches this sequence in either its intensity or its simplicity."

Online viewing tip. The Guardian opens a video report on the premiere night with a clip from the actual interviews. Clips from the film, red carpet interviews, etc, follow.

Posted by dwhudson at October 15, 2008 1:09 AM