Great poster, but the film has nothing to do with numbers. A chess set would have been more appropriate.
Cold War London. There is a mole at the top of MI6. George Smiley (Gary Oldman), recently forcibly retired, is put in charge of a secret operation to hunt him out.
This film has great casting. Gary Oldman is unrecognisable, having matured into an interesting actor (he plays Commissioner Gordon in Christopher Nolan’s Batman films). Gone is the horrendous yet hilarious over-acting of his earlier career mostly playing villains. Instead, as the retired intelligence man Smiley, Oldman is perfectly understated and even mumbles. Colin Firth, John Hurt, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch all do fairly well, some with very small roles. Come award season, the media will suddenly proclaim this as a British film, despite the director, Tomas Alfredson, being Swedish. The camera work is as muted and understated as his previous film, Let The Right One In, only this time it captures the grim grey of 1970s London rather than the snowy wastes of 1980s Sweden.
While it captures this feeling, over the course of the film I noticed we are never actually shown much of the city, possibly because of a limited budget. The film is incredibly grainy and desaturated, and cars, hair, clothes all accurately recreate the emotional truth, if not literal truth, of the period (as I imagine it to be, I wasn’t born yet). The actors fit in surprisingly well, John Hurt’s craggy face, often drinking whiskey or smoking, looking like it belongs in the 70s. While some might call the film “realistic”, in fact, aesthetically it is incredibly stylised, although to a different purpose than a Bond film would be.
Tension is built up almost entirely on atmosphere, as the characters are only infrequently in actual danger (except for Tom Hardy’s character perhaps). The story is a slow-burn, peppered with flashbacks that can easily confuse some members of the audience who aren’t paying attention or leave to go to the bathroom (don’t do that). In my opinion, there are sufficient visual clues and editorial decisions to unravel the plot. For example, Smiley buys new glasses at one point in the film, so in the present he’s wearing a different pair than in the past. Many shots and moments are repeated in new contexts, giving the audience enough information to figure out what’s happening.
This film hearkens back to a simpler time of moral absolutism during the Cold War that has now disappeared in the face of the UK waging illegal wars, being complicit in torture, and supporting dictators (“God I miss the Cold War” says Judi Dench’s M in Casino Royale). A lot of that took place back then as well, although the public never heard of it, instead being fed propaganda about the evils of Communism. The film only addresses this briefly, through Smiley’s story about his attempt to persuade a Soviet to defect, but it’s probably for the best given the self-conscious hand-wringing politicising that pervades modern spy films (see Quantum of Solace: “You know who Greene is and you want to put us in bed with him.” “Yeah, you’re right. We should just deal with nice people.”) For an adaptation, this is apparently very faithful (the author was a producer). The compression of events doesn’t hurt the film except for maybe some missing characterisation, but this mysteriousness only adds to the atmosphere.
One final important point. I’ve heard some people describe this movie as dull or hard to follow. I’ve heard it compared unfavourably to the original book and the BBC miniseries starring Alec Guinness, both of which are unfamiliar to me. You might be disappointed, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope the rest of Le Carré’s books following Smiley are adapted.
Verdict: Strong recommend.
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