HBO’s Special Relationship explores Clinton-Blair bromance
Michael Sheen’s terrific ‘Tony Blair trilogy’ concludes with ‘The Special Relationship’s’ look at the Clintons.
The Special Relationship nominates several candidates for the team-up that gives the nimble political drama its title. Airing this month on HBO, the film cites Winston Churchill’s famous quote about “the special relationship” that comprises Britain’s alliance with the United States. The film subtly contrasts two political marriages from opposite sides of the Atlantic: those of Tony and Cherie Blair (Michael Sheen and Helen McCrory) and Bill and Hillary Clinton (Dennis Quaid and Hope Davis). The Special Relationship’s middle section evokes the Lewinsky Affair, but primarily the film tracks how the POTUS and the P.M., kindred spirits as slick center-left Baby Boomers, fall in and out love with each other.
Initially the film gets plenty of comedic mileage from Blair’s man-crush on Clinton. A prologue finds Blair arriving in Washington D.C. as an obscure British MP in late 1992, looking to copy from the Democratic Party’s election-winning playbook. A few years pass and Blair, as the front-runner for England’s Prime Minister, fusses like a nervous schoolgirl before meeting Clinton in the White House. After Blair’s election, he (accidentally) hangs up on the President of France to receive a congratulatory call from Clinton.