Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Summer viewing - Frost/Nixon



We saw it last night. To quote a reviewer, "If there's a single misstep in Ron Howard's expertly calibrated Frost/Nixon, it eluded me."

I remember the time well, as of course all Australians who were around then remember "Frost over Australia", which I swear was on the Seven network, not Nine as the movie suggests.

Interestingly the movie uses "Australia" as a synonym for failure. (The words do rhyme.) The idea was that Frost was only down under in the early 1970s because his career was washed up. It never occurred to us at the time. We felt graced by British brilliance, as if Australia was part of the jet-set. Frost interviewed Gough Whitlam and got an admission out of him that Whitlam wasn't a Christian, but was a "fellow traveller". More Parky than Parky, and with much more quick-wittedness than is suggested in the film.

My wife (a radio and television journalist) and I cringed at Frost's truly awful interviewing style as portrayed in the film. It must have been in fact been aweful because that part of the film came from transcripts.

Frost described the whole experience to Philip Adams here. (The audio will vanish from the site after a while), and to The Age here.

Five stars from me.