President Reagan (Jeff Daniels) and Mikhail Gorbachev (Jared Harris) meet in Iceland to discuss nuclear arms. Secretary of State George Schultz (J.K. Simmons) is with him. At one point they agree to total disarmament, but it all falls apart over the Strategic Defense Initiative. Gorbachev has his wife (Branka Katic) there, but Nancy Reagan (Hope Davis) is home working on hospitals for children. Reagan talks to her daily. There are also two reporters, Cleo and Alexander (Aya Cash and Guy Burnet). They mostly cover Gorbachev's wife as the negotiations are behind closed doors. They do get a picture of a hand shake at the end. So the talks on nuclear weapons fall apart, but they do negotiate the sister of a music conductor getting to see his sister as the president agrees she will be sent back. With that small crack, the Soviet Union crumbles in just three years, the iron curtain falls, and today there are ten percent of the nuclear arms in the world there were at the time of the meeting in Reykjavik. Reagan explains to Schultz the meeting was not for nuclear arms, but for the Soviets to see you can't just keep people locked up and be right.
I really enjoyed this movie. The negotiating was very intense. Daniels portrayed Reagan with continued issues with his having been shot. This included arm immobility and tremors as well as bad dreams. There are also some lovely views of Iceland, tall water falls, the ocean and snowy mountains.
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