Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Film (2011)

Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Screenplay by Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan
Based on the novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974) by John le Carré
Film Editing by Dino Jonsäter
Cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema

With Gary Oldman (George Smiley), John Hurt (Control), Colin Firth (Bill Haydon), Ciarán Hinds (Roy Bland), Toby Jones (Percy Alleline), Mark Strong (Jim Prideaux)

George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is in forced retirement from the so-called Circus, the ultra-secret wing of the British intelligence service, but he is recalled to investigate the presence of a mole within the ranks. There are many viable candidates and Smiley, in his focused but understated way, gradually reduces the field.

To read many of the reviews, one might think this a rival in cinematic accomplishment to Citizen Kane. Despite that widespread overestimation, this is a perfectly good spy thriller, decently written and well made.

A preliminary mystery: the title of the film, unlike the title of the book, has no commas. Is it perhaps to make it easier on people who put letters up on marquees?

Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Smiley, the protagonist, makes the film; it is shrewdly understated, and a wry, but strangely affecting, depiction of a master of espionage. Somehow, Oldman transfixes the viewer with very little visible alteration of his face. That insouciance, combined with his conveyance of a calm and thoughtful intelligence behind, provides the attraction.

The plot itself is intriguing, but quite intricate, told in pastiche, and not so easy to follow. I have not read the novel, but a friend who did, and who is quite astute at interpreting plots, said he was confused by it. So, I do not fault the screenwriters for failing to render it clearly.

In the end, one does get to see how the strands weave together, but it did strike me that, despite the novelistic complexity, more attention by the screenwriters to giving a bit more of a clue of what was going on would have been useful; the film certainly could have done that without giving away any surprises.

John Hurt (Control) is stylishly craggy as the chief spymaster, though, frankly, every time I see him onscreen I cannot stop bringing to mind his literally “gut wrenching” performance in the sci-fi terror-epic, Alien (1979). Despite the name of his character in Tinker, he still communicates a tragic vulnerability that counters Oldman’s rendition of Smiley’s self-possession, providing a seductive irony throughout.

Colin Firth (Bill Haydon) is appropriately refined as one of the eponymous supervisors; he gets to strut a bit more of his complex stuff in the denouement.

Ciarán Hinds (Roy Bland), an Irish actor I remember first seeing, and being taken with, in the 1995 film of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, is acceptably taciturn as one of the other administrative acolytes.

Toby Jones (Percy Alleline), as one of the other acolytes, conveys a driven bureaucratized creepiness, as though he had rolled over one morning from playing a Nazi official and got out of bed as a British agent.

Mark Strong (Jim Prideaux), in a subsidiary, but focal, role, has the looks and intensity of Stanley Tucci (in one of his stressed and dour performances); combined with Oldman’s Smiley, his performance gives guts to the film.

It is not clear why, all of a sudden, this film of a thirty-seven year old Soviet-era espionage novel got made, but it did, and, whatever the inspiration, it fills the bill as very capable in its genre. Take a grain of salt with those rich reviews and you will enjoy it even more.

– BADMan