Review - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

[andrewducker]

There are spies in TTSS, but none of them have an exploding pen, or a car
that turns invisible. There are a few punches thrown, and some violence,
but none of it is Bourne-style martial arts or Bond-esque gunplay.

These spies are middle aged (our main character, Smiley, is in his 50s),
middle-class, and more prone to staring at files for long periods than they
are to abseiling off the world's tallest building.

This isn't the action-thriller that make up the majority of modern
thrillers, it's an old-fashioned thriller that does its job fantastically
well by just ratcheting up tension, showing us the investigation, and
playing things as realistically as possible.

John Le Carré, who wrote the original novel, recently gave an interview
decrying the unrealistic nature of Spooke. And he should know, having
worked for both MI5 and MI6.*

So what you have here is a portrait of foreign-intelligence operations as
they actually were, bumbling, corrupt, and terribly dull, except when it
isn't.

The actors are all on great form, the writing is sharp, and the direction
and filmographt gave me flashbacks to my youth - terrible wallpaper,
appalling clothes and all.

The basic plot is simple - there's a spy somewhere at the top of MI6, and
George Smiley has to come out of retirement to find them. It's incredibly
well constructed, telling large chunks of the tale through flashbacks
without ever leaving me confused.

It's not an exciting film. You won't come out of it wanting to be a spy
and save the world. But that's probably a good thing, and you won't regret
it.



*TTSS is based upon the real life hunt for Kim Philby.

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I loved the way the BBC adaptations were so mercilessly unglamorous - very glad to hear that's carried over to this version!

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

There is a character (Ricki Tarr) in the film who I thought was identifiably in a James Bond kind of role. He's also a bit of a fool. And disposable. Smiley is his boss's boss.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

thank you.

[andrewducker]

So, gonna see it? It's not everyone's cup of tea, right enough.

[andrewducker]

True - he's the kind of person who likes the idea of being a spy. And thus doesn't get to actually run things.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Even then, Tarr is closer to the central character of The IPCRESS File (unnamed in Deighton's book; 'Harry Palmer' in the film) or David Callan from the eponymous TV series than he is to Bond. There may be thrills and and element of sociopathic pleasure in what he does, but little glamour.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

This makes me more interested in seeing it.

[cybik.livejournal.com]

I thought it was quite good, but I would have enjoyed it more if I didn't know the TV version. Gary Oldman is good, but Alec Guinness, to me, made a more convincing Smiley. In fact, of all the leads Ciarán Hinds was the only one who was a close contender to playing his character as convincingly as the actors in the TV series. The thing that the TV version did really well was make it obvious that everyone thought it couldn't possibly be someone who went to public school who was the mole; that it was, in fact, inconceivable that anyone "of our sort" could do that and do it for so long. I felt the film almost went too far in making it of the seventies - Lacon wouldn't have lived in such a modern house! Think of today's politicians - very few of them (and especially the public schoolboys) would live in a modern house now. Most of them live in old buildings with old art.

One thing the film did very well was the pacing. The TV series is almost too long; it's very slow moving and while that is brilliant, sometimes you do think "yes, yes, I've got that now!"

Watching the TV one was weird, though, since Hywel Bennett is, to me, Mr Croup and seeing him as Ricki Tarr was a bit weird!

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Gary Oldman deliberately copied mannerisms from Alec Guinness, apparently, because he also thought that Alec was the perfect actor to play Smiley.

I loved how evident the divide between the younger and older men at the Circus was. For me, the main way that the film adaptation suffered was simply that in being a film (and not an Important Event Film) it was constrainted to a couple of hours in length and could have done with an extra hour.

On the subject of Lacon's house, I was wondering if perhaps it wasn't really his house and was possibly a place he kept for a mistress or something similar, which conceivably would be modern. :-D

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

It could of course go further and be completely mundane and devoid of tension, and just document two hours in the typical workday of an espionage agent in a documentary fashion in real time. Just as Le Carre could have done. But then there's a limit to how far you can go and have a career producing marketable product...

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

As in: don't criticise others for being unrealistic, because your own approach isn't itself realistic, in that its still a generic thriller work. Rather than a novel about the hunt for Kim Philby he could, after all, have done one about keeping tabs on trade unionists or suchlike.

[andrewducker]

I haven't seen the TV series, although I now rather fancy it, and Mr Horror is going to lend me his copy.

[andrewducker]

There's a difference between "Picking out the interesting bits that occurred (similarly) in real life across a period of time." and "Making stuff up" though.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Depends upon what your definition of interesting is: Is MI5 and MI6 working against the elected government or opposition party not of interest? Something like Ken Loach's Hidden Agenda is worth seeing as a counterpoint.

[anef.livejournal.com]

Well, it sounds pretty exciting to me, but then I'm an accountant.

[andrewducker]

Well, exactly. I'd hate to be in that situation myself, I'd go crazy with stress.