Nearly 40 years ago, 40th US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev sat across a table in Reykjavík and tried to imagine a world with fewer nuclear weapons.
“Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged,” Reagan told the National Association of Evangelicals in 1983. His belief that liberty rested on faith and moral order gives a revealing frame to THE BRINK OF WAR, a new historical drama about the tense 1986 Reykjavík Summit.
In a new Movieguide® interview, actor Jeff Daniels, who portrays Reagan, said the movie places viewers inside a weekend when two leaders tried to pull the world back from nuclear disaster.
“It’s a great emotional ride through a very dangerous time in the world’s history. And that danger of nuclear weapons still exists today,” Daniels said.
THE BRINK OF WAR follows Reagan as he tries to reach an arms agreement with Gorbachev. Actor Jared Harris plays the Soviet leader. The official synopsis says every word brings the world closer to peace or destruction as advisers and intelligence agencies press in.
Harris said the role left him with a question for Gorbachev.
“Was it worth it?” Harris said he would ask the former Soviet leader, reflecting on the summit and the political upheaval that followed.
Related: Jeff Daniels & Jared Harris on Playing Reagan and Gorbachev | THE BRINK OF WAR Interview
Daniels, meanwhile, found the drama in Reagan’s willingness to enter the room without knowing exactly how the weekend would end. He said Reagan had clear goals but faced a formidable opponent in Gorbachev, leaving no easy path to an agreement.
The real summit ended without a deal after Reagan refused Gorbachev’s demand to restrict research on the Strategic Defense Initiative. Yet Reagan later said the leaders had come close to an agreement on real reductions in strategic and intermediate-range weapons. The impossible had at least reached the negotiating table.
THE BRINK OF WAR also steps away from the negotiating table to show Reagan and Gorbachev with their wives. Daniels said Reagan’s devotion to First Lady Nancy Reagan humanizes the president, while Harris noted that both marriages reveal sides of the men the public posture could not.
Those scenes put a human face on the summit. Both leaders had to see a person, not just an enemy, across the table while holding to their convictions about freedom, security and the future.
Movieguide®’s review praised Daniels, Harris and actor J.K. Simmons for giving their historical figures humanity. The review awarded the PG-rated movie three out of four stars and recommended it for history lovers, teens and discerning adults, though younger children may lose interest in its detail-heavy, conversation-driven scenes.
“Some light foul language, anti-Capitalist and anti-faith comments from Communist characters, but ultimately a story about the power of democracy, Capitalism and freedom,” the review says.
The review specifically urges discernment around Gorbachev’s comparison of Jesus to the first Socialist and a brief reference to Nancy Reagan’s astrology. Reagan’s own words cut through that muddle: for him, liberty rested on faith, moral order and the humble acknowledgment of God.
Daniels wishes leaders with that kind of resolve could speak into the present moment.
“I wish these two guys were around now to weigh in on maybe how to help us get back to that kind of safer world for all of us,” he said.
THE BRINK OF WAR is now playing in theaters.
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