Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
DIRECTED BY TOMAS ALFREDSON
Director Tomas Alfredson follows up his stunning 2008 Swedish ’80s-set horror thriller Let the Right One In with the second filmed adaptation of writer John le Carré’s ’70s-set labyrinthine British spy thriller, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The almost notoriously complex bestseller was originally a seven-part 1979 BBC miniseries with British notables like Alec Guinness, Michael Jayston, and George Sewell. Alfredson is still using a stacked deck of modern British talent, but he compresses the narrative far too much for a faithful and gorgeous-looking retelling that should be longer than just a shade over two hours.
Gary Oldman stars as George Smiley, a former MI6 agent forced into retirement along with his boss (John Hurt) after a snafu in Hungary that nearly left a good agent (Mark Strong) dead. Smiley is brought back into the fold after learning that the agent on the Hungarian assignment was there to suss out the identity of a mole “at the top of the Circus.” He’s aided primarily by a somewhat junior agent (Benedict Cumberbatch) and a disavowed agent (Tom Hardy) who got too close to the truth himself.
TTSS hearkens back to a time when most important conversations amongst powerful male figures took place in grey and brown rooms while the participants chain-smoked and knocked back fingers of Johnny Walker Red like it was going out of style (or like they were possibly about to be killed by the person sitting directly across the table from them). To his immense credit as a director, Alfredson shoots every scene like he was photographing a 1970s Playboy ad for stereo equipment—you can almost smell the aftershave and yellowing paperback pages coming off the screen. With this film he proves to be the real deal as a director, and certainly a force to be reckoned with.
The cast itself is also too big to fail, as they all disappear under sometimes hideous make-up, suits, and wigs to embody the smooth machismo of the era. Oldman loses himself completely in the role of Smiley, a man who will never exactly tell you what’s on his mind. But the real standouts here are Hardy and Strong as the mentally and physically wounded agents bitter about how the system they swore to uphold has suddenly found no use for them.
The only real shame about the film is that the script doesn’t entirely work. It’s generally understood by this point that the film requires 100 per cent absolute concentration or else audience members will be totally lost. While the plot points do all add up if you’re constantly taking notes on what happens (I was), it’s hard to shake the fact that the entire film feels like it’s racing to include all the necessary details, with flashbacks coming almost at random and lacking much by way of transitions. The fact that the movie gives away that there are only three real suspects about an hour in stunts things greatly, but TTSS still a corker to watch. It’s about five hours too short in the best possible ways.