Saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy last night and enjoyed it very much, easy to follow and great performances. Especially Gary Oldman who had to shine to cast out shades of Alec Guinness. All I could recollect of the television series were interminable shots of Alec’s Smiley wandering around in a big black coat looking glum and lots of incomprehensible conversations between grey, burnt out people.
But forgotten memories emerged during the film. The Hungarian set-up going wrong, Connie and her whisky, Ricky and Irina. But the series included a lot of detail – about the spy game in general and the UK and Russian versions of same, the general sense of disillusionment in the 70s, and backgrounds to a wide cast of characters – that made the plot line convoluted and very hard to follow.
In contrast the film delivers a pared back, skeleton of a story over two hours in an impressive display of cinematic skills from script writing through to direction, acting and cinematography. The period is faithfully reproduced through shop fronts, cars and interiors, clothes and cigarettes – all that smoke! Drab colours reflect the waning optimism of characters in relation to their cause, their side. The circusis a labyrinth in which they are all trapped, with its petty bureaucratic rules – signing in, chits for bags, instructions for how to leave the elevator; and its rituals – the trolley conveying files to safe-keeping every morning.
Smiley’s makeshift office is perfectly placed above railway tracks. What journey are we on ? Where are we going? Is the destination worth the trouble? We watch him mulling over pieces of the puzzle, going over the scant pieces of information delivered up from his interviews with the grey burnt out people. And see the rail tracks shifting into place as the solution clicks in his mind.
Some memorable bits. A Christmas party like no other that we keep coming back to. Extreme amounts of alcohol revealing people at their most vulnerable – Control losing control, glimpses of professional rivalry, intimate glances exchanged, infidelity observed – the best Santa Clause and a rollicking Christmas carol (sort of). Lots of back stories efficiently compressed into this evening and gradually revealed as the story rolls out. I missed the cameo from John Le Carre – look out for him here. Another great scene when Smiley describes his meeting with Karla to Guillam; re-enacting the intensity of the encounter with a chair standing in for his old adversary. Budapest and Istanbul provide exotic interludes. All in the same grey tones, but exotic nonetheless. Lots of little flourishes: a bee in a car, a hand fiddling with mints, stockinged feet creeping over a floor.
Despite all of this, and probably a direct result of the film’s strengths – brevity and clarity – there is a strange lack of suspense and emotion at it’s heart. The novel and the television series, were suffused with both. Real suspense about who the traitor was, and the dangers associated with tracking him down. Torture and murder, whilst present, are glossed over fleetingly. We don’t get a sense that the characters are putting their lives on the line. The key emotion that is missing is a sense of, and the consequences of, betrayal. One reason for this is the lack of focus on Anne, Smiley’s wife. The references are there – letters put aside, murmured queries by colleagues, a kiss observed, shoes being hastily put on, a painting delivered and observed, a cigarette lighter – but Anne remains curiously absent from the film. And she needs to be the moral centre of the story because she is absent. We needed a little more of Smiley’s heartache than we got. We saw more emotion, and the impact of betrayal, between other characters portrayed in a glance and a discarded photo; in Guillam’s cleaning up of his private life and between Irina and Ricky Starr.
Nevertheless, all of the acting was very fine. Gary Oldham excelled and his performance, in a difficult role, carried the film. Portraying the quintessential Englishman, controlled, repressed, conflicted. There was lots of nuance and some humour in the portrayal, but perhaps not enough hurt beneath the layers. Benedict Cumberbatch as Smiley’s side-kick Guillam is good (and looks very familiar from shows like Heartbeat and Miss Marple). Colin Firth is good in everything! And played Bill Haydon just right. Toby Hardy, last seen in Inception was good as Ricky Tarr. John Hurt is always terrific and was totally believable as a frustrated Control. Mark Strong as Jim Prideaux was good. A familiar face, IMDb reminded me he was a philosophising drug runner in The Guard (great in that too). Toby Jones (once a very fine Truman Capote) was good as Percy Alleline, bursting with ambition. Ciaran Hinds who I will always see as Captain Wentworth in Persuasion, didn’t have a lot to do as Roy Bland, but did it well. Not many meaty female roles, with only Connie and Irena having much to do, but again they and all of the other actors were good.
Two hours passed in a flash. So, a fine entertainment – do go and see this film. Then read the book.
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