Peter Morgan

A remark goes unanswered in The Crown (2016), and Morgan makes that small failure of politeness worth attending to. His gift is for conversations in which people with difficult jobs cannot agree on how to do them. The breakthrough was The Deal (2003), followed by The Queen (2006) and Frost/Nixon (2008). Across these dramas, he combines public events with imagined private exchanges, giving actors plenty to work with.

Stephen Frears finds a particularly good use for that approach in The Queen, where the immediate question is how the royal family should behave during a crisis. We were moved by Helen Mirren's Queen because her tightly controlled performance lets us feel how hard it is to keep doing what she believes is her duty. Michael Sheen gives Blair an engaging briskness, but Morgan is rather too certain that this is the man who understands what is required. A joke can settle an exchange before either person has had to reconsider much.

Ron Howard makes Morgan's fondness for a contest work in Frost/Nixon: preparation, an apparent underdog and the prospect of a winner make an interview tense. The screenplay gives us a clear way into the men's ambitions, and Frank Langella makes Nixon uncomfortably sympathetic. Yet the emphasis on how each man performs under pressure narrows what the conversation can tell us. We recommend the film readily, with some impatience at how neatly Morgan has arranged the terms.

Rush (2013), again directed by Howard, shows both the usefulness and the limits of that habit. James Hunt's pleasure-seeking and Niki Lauda's exactness make the rivalry immediately understandable, while Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl make it matter. Morgan keeps explaining a difference we have already grasped, and gives Suzy Miller and Marlene Lauda too little attention beyond what they tell us about the drivers. The racing remains tense and involving; the writing between races sometimes hurries past the people.

The Crown expands those difficult conversations across six seasons, with royal duty repeatedly intruding on private life. Morgan sustains an absorbing family drama, helped by acting that gives weight to an unanswered remark. The solemn treatment of every frustration also slows it down: some scenes need less respectful attention. Start with The Queen; try The Crown if watching people struggle to remain polite sounds like a good evening.