Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

source: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

This is one of those films in which everybody looks at everybody else deeply meaningfully, to convey a story that by now lacks both originality and interest (who is the mole in the organization?! wowee!). The characters even walk slowly and purposefully to ensure you realize they're involved in something terribly significant. Every small step of the plot is unfolded with the kind of heavy handed, overblown technique so beloved of the pretentious auteur directors of the 1960s. I thought they didn't make them like this any more, but unfortunately I was wrong. I'd like to give such an obviously high quality cast and production team the benefit of the doubt; that they caught me in a bad mood on a bad day. But when you see even railway trains overacting you have objective evidence that you're watching a film whose makers think they're a darn sight smarter than they really are. One cutaway shows a portion of railway track switching — presumably symbolism that someone in the story just got the point (geddit?). I'm sorry I couldn't like this one better; it is meant to give us a realistic view of the tedious but dangerous business of cold war spying. But it takes ponderous, pretentious movie making to new heights. Perhaps we should put it on the record as the first film in which the techniques of method acting are extended to infest everyone concerned, right down to the chief grip.

Freezing. John Le Carre's spy story has a new version. Tomas Alfredson the Swedish director of the chillingly great "Let The Righ On In" understands the British climate. Impersonal raincoats wore by the very personal Gary Oldman are only part of the story. An undercurrent of passionate wheelings and dealings with poker face players makes for an engrossing tale that allows us some kind of distance. The production design is a masterpiece on its on. Just look at the wallpapers. I'm not going to venture into the actual plot but the performances. Gary Oldman is superb in a slightly younger and more virile version of Alec Guinness who played George Smiley in a celebrated British miniseries in 1979. Colin Firth's bisexual turn brings a dark sort of lightness to the proceedings. Tom Hardy is also superb as are Mark Strong and John Hurt. If you're a Le Carre fan you'll be enthralled, if you're not you may become one.

The acting was first-rate. The adaptation was horrible. There are so many holes in the plot I felt as though I missed the first 15 minutes of the movie......you know, the part where we're supposed to see the birth of the story line and some character development. Anyone who wasn't already familiar with the book would be completely lost. It's like I was watching part 2 of a two-part miniseries without having seen part 1. It was beyond disjointed. Did Cirian Hinds even have any lines in the movie?? He was in scene after scene but I don't remember him saying anything. In any case, I was hugely disappointed in this film. The BBC miniseries with Alec Guiness is vastly superior.