Frost/Nixon (DVD)

Based on Peter Morgan's stage play, Ron Howard directs this dramatised account of the 1977 TV interviews between scandalised former President Richard Nixon and British talk-show host David Frost. Three years after the Watergate scandal that led to his demise, former president Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) sat down with Frost (Michael Sheen) to discuss, for the first and only time, the details of his term in the White House and his spectacular fall from grace. With the famously steely Nixon confident that he could come out tops in the encounter, and Frost's side questioning whether this was a step too far, media commentators prepared themselves for a PR exercise. But when the interviews got underway, observers were astonished when both men abandoned their usual stances, and chose to conduct an open, honest and frank exchange of views, covering all the areas of concern that had previously remained off-limits. In addition to covering the interviews themselves, the film also traces the difficulties that had to be overcome, and egos that had to massaged, before the historic events could finally take place.