Almost completely gripping. That would be an apt way to describe "Frost/Nixon," the sleeper hit that almost brought Academy Awards to director Ron Howard and actor Frank Langella.

Though always on the verge of teeth-clenching, gut-wrenching histrionics, "Frost/Nixon" refrains politely from going too far out on a limb. There are moments in the film when a bit of foolish, flinging-caution-to-the-wind bravado would have benefited it; after all, the story takes certain liberties in adding occasional spoonfuls of fantasy to this otherwise nonfiction drama. Instead, it surreptitiously dabs at traces of sweat and applies layers of foundation makeup before anything or anyone gets out of hand. In one atypical scene, a man strips off his three-piece suit and whooping, runs straight into the California ocean. It's about two seconds of combustive spontaneity and then it's over, like a dazzling mirage of a Club Med ad glimpsed during a classical concert.

"Frost/Nixon" is a brilliantly executed, masterly performed portrayal of the David Frost (British talk-show host) / Richard Nixon (disgraced ex-president) interview which, when aired across much of the world in 1977, drew over 400 million people to their TV sets. It marked a moment in television history and one of the defining moments when American politics officially shifted its sparring arena from behind closed oak doors in Washington, D.C. to flood-lit network studios that promised to probe, expose and explain all for public consumption. But, as anti-Nixon journalist James Reston Jr. (played in the film by Sam Rockwell) points out, TV has a way of eluding the truth: "It simplifies and minimizes what we thought was the essence, the reality of what's happening." In this sense, "Frost/Nixon" is about the snakish, slithery nature of TV as much as it is about Frost and Nixon — a tantalizing blend of media commentary and behind-the-scenes personalities of two charismatic men.