Like a verbal boxing match, each participant is backed by his own set of "corner men." Frost has Nixon-loathing journalists James Reston (Sam Rockwell) and Bob Zelnick (Oliver Platt) along with his producer John Birt (Matthew Macfadyen). Nixon has his own set of loyal supporters in former military colonel Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon) and business manager Swifty Lazar (Toby Jones). There are verbal jabs and a flurry of toe-to-toe exchanges. Nixon labels himself as Frost's "fiercest adversary," taking every opportunity to fluster the smooth-talking interviewer by calling his Italian dress shoes "effeminate" and questioning whether he spent the previous night "fornicating." This is classic Nixon, and Langella, in an Oscar-worthy performance, has a hard time disguising how much fun he is having.

The emotional resonance of this film comes from the deep-rooted insecurities of both men. Frost, driven to be taken seriously as a journalist, leveraged $200,000 of his own money to secure the interview after being turned down by every major network. Nixon, meanwhile, is driven to paranoia of the "liberal media," bitterness towards politicians who appear more attractive than him on television and an insatiable thirst for public approval. Refusing to have his presidency defined by the Watergate scandal, Nixon stubbornly refuses to acknowledge wrong-doing even justifying his acts by claiming that "when the president does it, it is not illegal."

The dramatic epicenter of the film is a purely fictional account of a late-night phone call between Nixon and Frost the night before the final interview. Nixon, in a drunken stupor, gives a powerful filibuster that gives us a frightening glimpse of a conflicted man in the midst of a life-changing epiphany. Haunted by feelings of inadequacy and weakness, Nixon compensates for them with arrogant bravado while challenging authority and wielding power. On one hand, he understands the necessity of the President of the United States to be steadfast, confident, and trustworthy. On the other hand, he is wary of those who disagree with him and who seek to drive him out of office. In Frost he has found his kindred spirit, the two of them both wracked with insecurities and at the mercy of public opinion: Nixon in the voting booth, Frost with the Nielsen ratings and the approval of sponsors. The two actors play this scene beautifully, especially Langella who transforms physically from a frightened, guilt-ridden old man one minute to a raging, obstinate lunatic the next.

Frost/Nixon, along with Oliver Stone's W. earlier this year, paint sympathetic pictures of the imperfect men who have occupied the Oval Office. The sheer magnitude of the job itself requires a perfect man to be its occupant. The President is in a no-win situation and it is easy to see how one can be driven to do unfathomable things when given such power. Nixon succumbed to the pressure and, in doing so, jeopardized the integrity of our political system and the nation's confidence in its elected leaders. The Frost interview awarded him the opportunity to heal our nation and seek forgiveness by what Nixon called "the redemptive power of the close-up." It is debatable whether his contrite statement "I let the nation down" amounts to a true apology but history shows that it was not enough to earn Nixon the respect and forgiveness that he so craved.

A magnificent film, Frost/Nixon demonstrates very clearly a couple of universal truths: the depths of sin and delusion that plague the human heart (even if he is President of the United States) and the self-righteous arrogance in the heart of his opponents to withhold forgiveness and reconciliation, even when he seeks it

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