Dennis & Julianne & Bill & Hillary

A probable co-production between HBO & the BBC, the intimacy and immediacy of TV feels to me like a better showcase for Peter Morgan’s talent for factionalizing contemporary re-enactments than the big screen. From The Guardian UK:

The Deal (2003) was a duel. The Queen (2006) was a chess match. And The Special Relationship ‚Äì Peter Morgan’s latest take on Tony Blair’s career ‚Äì looks likely to be a love-in.

Dennis Quaid is attached to play the ex-US president… Julianne Moore is lined up to play Hillary Clinton. Morgan intends to sidestep casting of Monica Lewinsky by showing the former intern solely in archive footage, including video of her closed-door testimony to Congress.

The Guardian says Dennis Quaid beat out Russell Crowe, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin and Tim Robbins to play former President Clinton. More after the cut.

The film will focus on Blair’s close bond with Bill Clinton between 1997 and 2000: the years when their tenures at the top on both sides of the Atlantic coincided. Michael Sheen is due to return as the former prime minister for the third time, alongside Helen McCrory, reprising her Cherie Blair from The Queen.

The Special Relationship will be Peter Morgan’s directorial debut, and he already seems to have a better handle on what’s palatable than a veteran director who should’ve known better:

The Special Relationship would mark the first time the big screen has directly addressed Bubba’s years in power; George W Bush’s stint in the White House has already been immortalised on celluloid, in Oliver Stone’s W.

Morgan told the Daily Express that relations between Clinton and Blair appealed to him far more than anything involving Dubya.

“I couldn’t write him with any dignity or elegance,” he said. “I don’t want to spend the time thinking about him.

The re-pairing of Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore is an inspired choice. If Revolutionary Road gave us an alternative history in which Jack and Rose survived the Titanic, will The Special Relationship come with an overlay showing what might have been if Cathy and Frank Whitaker had not fallen so Far From Heaven?