Frost Nixon Movie Review - We Need Reminding

Do you recall where you were when President Richard Nixon resigned his position as President of the United States?

I was living in the Philippines at the time. My husband was stationed in Subic Bay, at the US Naval Base.

As a US military family, it was difficult to hear our nation's commander in chief resigning on a broadcast heard live over armed forces radio.

Even more amazing, to me, is recalling how the women around me were crying while President Nixon was giving his resignation speech. Frankly, when I heard the sobs and sighs of despair around me, during President Nixon's August 8,1974 speech, I simply left the room.

Why did I leave the room while the women cried? Because, I simply could not believe people were distressed about President Nixon's resignation after all the turmoil we endured in the months leading up to the inevitable. In resigning, in my mind, President Nixon admitted guilt. If he was innocent, completely unaware of the illegal break in at the Watergate Hotel to sabotage the Democratic Campaign headquarters, it stands to reason, he would have stood up to the challenge of exonerating himself. End of story.

So, initially, watching Ron Howard's excellent movie "Frost Nixon" left me feeling a little afraid - did I really want to relive remembering those crying women?

Yet, I'm certainly glad I did.

Aside from the movie's brilliant performances by Stacy Keach as Nixon and Alan Cox as the British interviewer David Frost, the movie took an unpleasant memory off a shelf in my mind, where it was collecting dust.

I'm glad to remember how the Frost-Nixon interviews, taped three years after the resignation, exposed the insidious influence power has over people.

Moreover, the Frost-Nixon movie supports the potential virtue of perseverance. Frost never gave up his quest to interview Nixon, despite enormous criticism and financial adversity. Initially, Frost was actually more interested in propelling his own career then finding out whether Nixon was guilty of criminal wrongdoing. Nevertheless, the two became mental jousters, where their non-verbal intelligence turns into a contest about who has the dominant mental power.

Most important, the movie dramatizes, yet again, how important integrity is when faced with power. Nixon had all the power, but he lacked integrity. Frost had no power, but he retained his integrity, despite Nixon's barbs and oblique remarks made while out of sound range.

Kevin Bacon also plays a shadowy, but clever, role in Frost-Nixon. Bacon's role as Nixon's administrative assistant, a Marine officer named Jack Brennan, is portrayed like a revealing mirror through which Nixon is seen like his closest confidents saw him. Brennan's (Bacon's) response to his boss stirs up some surprising sympathy, especially when confronted with the president's darkest thoughts. Sometimes, I had to actually remind myself not to be sympathetic to Nixon, especially when he admits to firing his aides John Erlichman and H.R. Halderman because he was under political pressure to do so - not because they were complicit in criminal acts.

Frankly, recalling those women crying on August 8, 1974 is like experiencing a wailing hallucination. Those sad women simply wasted their tears. Looking back today, they surely regret supporting a man who said, "When the President does it, it isn't a crime."

We must never forget. Howard's movie "Frost-Nixon" will outlast our collective memories. Certainly, the movie will erase any enduring ambiguities about Nixon's paranoid intentions.

Frost-Nixon is a top notch hit and a movie classic.