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Longford comes alive

Peter Morgan may have been 2006's screenwriter of the year. He's up for an Oscar this month for "The Queen," also a best picture nominee. His immensely intelligent script for "The Last King of Scotland," which he co-wrote with Jeremy Brock, won a BAFTA Award earlier this month.

He's shown an uncanny ability to reimagine real events, and his latest project is no exception. "Longford," a co-production between HBO Films and Britain's Channel 4 and Granada, premieres tomorrow night at 8 on HBO.

Jim Broadbent ("Iris") is nearly unrecognizable as Frank Pakenham, the 7th Earl of Longford, the real-life politician who campaigned for the freedom of a murderess. The film opens in the 1990s with Longford on a radio program talking about a book he's just written on the saints. But the callers wish to talk about someone rather less than saintly: Myra Hindley, sentenced to life in prison for her part in the notorious Moors Murders of five children in the 1960s.

"Knowing what you know now, do you regret helping her all those years?" one caller asks. The 90-minute film is an attempt to answer the question.

In 1967, Longford is a cabinet minister and leader of the House of Lords, known for his charitable work visiting prisoners. His family supports his vocation until he begins seeing Hindley (an intense but not over-the-top Samantha Morton of "Minority Report"), who assisted her lover Ian Brady (a suitably sinister Andy Serkis of "Lord of the Rings") in the murders. When she seeks Longford's help in returning to the Catholic Church, to which he's a famous convert, he believes she's been rehabilitated and should be considered for parole.

The public has a rather different view.

Mr. Morgan has written an insightful portrait of a devout man; the understated dialogue couldn't have been easy to write. It helps that he has the great Mr. Broadbent to deliver with ease lines like, "No human being is beyond forgiveness. Condemn people from our armchairs and what have we become?" Longford isn't an unbelievable saint, though. For years, he avoids listening to a tape that might prove Hindley isn't as innocent as she claims.

Tom Hooper's (HBO's "Elizabeth I") direction is also spot on, particularly in the point-of-view shots that give viewers the feeling of what it was like to be the most hated woman in Britain. In fact, it's Hindley's gender, as Longford's wife, Elizabeth (Lindsay Duncan), points out, that makes her case so fraught with complication.