The Special Relationship (2010)

IMDb

Made for television film is the third entry in writer Peter Morgan's 'Tony Blair Trilogy', the others being 2003's The Deal (about how Blair not eventual successor Gordon Brown became the Labour Party standard barrier in the mid 90's) and of course The Queen (2006). Morgan knows exactly what he's doing here, as dose Michael Sheen whose made something of a career out of the part. This is the type of behind the scenes, inside baseball, talkie political film that really fascinates me, probably because it largely consists of interesting people having interesting conversations. We know that the two performers who play the Blair's really know their parts, but its the The Clinton's that kind of steal the film, Dennis Quaid surprisingly good as Bill (he also played a kind of spoof version of George W. Bush in American Dreamz (2006)), and Hope Davis gives us perhaps the first really sympathetic portrait of Hillary Clinton maybe ever (Hillary Clinton herself is not actually that great at giving a sympathetic portrait of Hillary Clinton), I think she might well get an Emmy (Davis not Clinton). All and all engaging look back at the global political situation in the prosperous 1990's, film reveals a surprisingly complicated relationship between that decades two most charismatic and successful politicians. Recommended. 4 out of 5.