Ron Howard’s ‘Frost/Nixon’ Looks Better in the Trump Era

Ron Howard, the Hollywood film director, is now a spry 72, and always with the baseball cap. He has directed at least 8 or 9 top-tier, grade-A “audience movies.” Except for 2024’s oddly misbegotten “Eden,” this is what Mr. Howard does — he makes films for Average Joes and Janes with classic taste buds. In my book his best, in this order, are “Apollo 13,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “Thirteen Lives,” “The Paper,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Cinderella Man,” “Parenthood,” “Splash,” and “Night Shift.” He’s far from finished. The proverbial word around the campfire is that Mr. Howard’s “Alone at Dawn,” an Afghanistan war film that stars Adam Driver and Anne Hathaway, is quite good. A research screening “review” of this fact-based heroism saga was recently posted by Hollywood industry columnist Jeff Sneider.Last Friday night I caught Howard’s fifth-best film, “Frost/Nixon” (2008) at the Jacob Burns Film Center at Pleasantville. When the lights came up the black-garbed, silver-stubbled Howard came onstage and chewed the fat with a moderator. “Frost/ Nixon” was decently made and nominated for five Oscars but disappointed at the box-office. Most of us know the essence of the film which is set in 1977 and based upon Peter Morgan’s 2006 stage play (I caught the Broadway version in 2007). The scheme is essentially that the chatty, light-hearted Frost was out of his depth when he interviewed the avuncular, bordering-on-ogre-ish Nixon in four televised segments. But Frost rallied during the final Watergate section of the interview and Nixon wound up admitting that he participated in a cover-up and “let the American people down.” But he admitted this only after a good amount of dodging, tap-dancing, posturing, smoke-blowing, side-stepping and plain old evasion. Which is how most of us, I think, come to the truth about ourselves. We never admit to it early on, always looking to put off the moment of reckoning. “Frost/Nixon” is a metaphor for this process, for the path that we all travel on the way to facing facts about who we are and what we’ve done.Frank Langella’s performance as Richard Nixon took the acting laurels back then, and he’s still the champ today. His Nixon is naturally and necessarily more toned down than it was on stage, and that makes it fascinating, moving and sad.Michael Sheen’s David Frost performance is fine as far as it goes, although he seems to be “acting” Frost’s apprehension rather than just exuding it through his pores.But “Frost/Nixon” came out 18 years ago and compared to the egoistic coarseness and crime-boss pathology emanating from President Trump, Mr. Langella’s Nixon comes off as half-sympathetic — obviously a man of regrettable flaws and political mistakes, but basically a human being. Nixon may have behaved a bit ruthlessly or carelessly during the Watergate scandal, the film is saying, but he was never a madman. Despite many on the left having despised Nixon during the early to mid 1970s, your heart goes out to the guy today, or at least to Mr. Langella’s version.He’s cynical and bitter but not a monster, and he seems to be living a lonely life, stuck in an old-world mindset — he thinks Frost’s gold-banded Gucci loafers are a bit effeminate — and needs to watch his drinking. He is forlorn, vulnerable, haunted. Boiled down, the 47th President’s louche behavior and attitude has enhanced Richard Nixon’s profile by comparison. The real David Frost and Richard Nixon. Wikimedia CommonsDon’t forget how even Noam Chomsky wrote 12 years ago that Nixon was “the last liberal president.” Nixon established the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and later pushed for comprehensive national health insurance reform. He also advocated lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 and signed the 26th Amendment to this effect in 1971. I tried asking Mr. Howard about the Trump-Nixon contrast, but the discussion moderator ignored my raised hand, instead picking questioners who asked the usual memory-lane fan stuff (how was it playing opposite Andy Griffith in “The Andy Griffith Show”? etc.)Howard appeared to be in good physical shape and sounded mentally sharp, but his reddish whiskers are gone. He is a friendly, pleasant, open-hearted guy, temperamentally a world away from his erstwhile screen subjects Nixon and Frost.

Ron Howard’s ‘Frost/Nixon’ Looks Better in the Trump Era

Ron Howard’s ‘Frost/Nixon’ Looks Better in the Trump Era

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