Director: Tomas Alfredson
If you've seen Tomas Alfredson's previous film, Let the Right One In then you know a bit about what to expect with his newest film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. What Alfredson does to horror movie conventions in Let the Right One In he does to spy movie conventions in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It's a subtle and quiet film that avoids giving the audience the action scenes and plot twists that they expect from movies like this. Instead of the mystery of who the mole is, it is the atmosphere and the personal stories that make this movie so special.
If you have not read the book or seen the BBC miniseries adaptation of the book, like I did not, then the first viewing of this film will almost certainly be filled with some confusing moments. But after you leave the theater, things will pop into place and it will all make sense. I have seen the film twice now and on the second viewing I can confirm that everything does make sense and is all connected in an incredibly intricate and elliptical way. The screenwriters had a huge book to adapt and they did so in a way that avoids spy movie conventions but still offers just enough information for the plot to make sense.
More important than the plot though are the people involved in this hunt for a mole and the world that they inhabit. They work in a cold and stoic bureaucratic world that has made no room for personal desires, but as we learn in the film it is exactly those personal desires that keep creeping up. Alfredson and his actors, Gary Oldman in particular, create a distance to their characters, we're not supposed to know them because that's how this world works. But we learn that as much as these people try to repress their inner desires, those passions and wants will always come into play and influence the most stringent of institutions.
(I also reviewed the film for the Daily Evergreen, which is more or less the same as this but a bit longer. You can find that here)
Grade: B+
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