Bryan Cassiday's Blog

Adapted from John le Carre’s signature espionage novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is an excellent and deceptive spy drama that barely ripples above the surface, but is a raging torrent underneath.

The film proceeds at a pavanelike deliberate pace with its dearth of action, all the while sustaining its tension through the characters’ interactions and the intricacies of the byzantine but believable plot while Smiley carries on his investigation trying to find out who the Soviet mole is in Britain’s secret service.

The film plays like a game of chess where everyone is being manipulated, and nobody is really sure who is pulling the strings.  In fact, the main characters are portrayed as chess pieces in several scenes and the pieces appear as a recurring motif.

The British actors are top-drawer, but  I almost didn’t recognize the uncharacteristically subdued, for the most part, Tom Hardy in his blond wig.

The direction is pitch perfect.  Tomas Alfredson nails everything in this film right down to its grainy fin-de-siecle twentieth-century cinematography.    The directing is so good it reminds me of Carol Reed’s classic Third Man.  Both films are good at evoking atmosphere.  The Third Man catches the ambiance of post-World War II Europe and, likewise, Tinker Tailor catches the ambiance of the cold war era it depicts.  Even Smiley’s glasses that seem to dominate his long face look characteristic of that time period.

The scene in Tinker Tailor where a teenager is dancing on the oil drums at a harbor while a gurney is transported past him to a docked ship reminds me of scenes typical of The Third Man in the way it captures the setting and vivifies it.

At the theater I went to to see Tinker Tailor, most of the audience clapped for this fine film, and rightly so, I believe.