Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy - review

Here be monsters: Gary Oldman brings a sense of danger to the softly spoken spymaster George Smiley, while director Tomas Alfredson adds layers of creepy menace
10 April 2012

John le Carré has given this film of his masterpiece about spying in the Cold War his fullest endorsement, in the most interesting terms.

He had loved the television series of 32 years ago with Alec Guinness as the hero, George Smiley, and so was nervous about a new version. "In the public perception, Alec was Smiley: period. How could another actor equal let alone surpass him?"

But Le Carré thinks Gary Oldman has brought something different to Smiley, the shy, softly spoken spymaster brought out of retirement to track down the Soviet mole who has been betraying all his colleagues in the "Circus" for 30 years. In his wonderfully cultivated way, on Radio 4's Today programme, he said: "You couldn't imagine Alec Guinness having a sex life, whereas Oldman has quite obviously a male sexuality which he represses, like all his other feelings." Oldman conveys a much greater sense of danger and threat too, Le Carré suggested, calling him "a Smiley waiting patiently to explode."

Le Carré also praised the sensitivity of the film's director, the Swede Tomas Alfredson, known previously for his eerie vampire-friendly movie, Let the Right One In. In fact, he thinks the film is "nothing less than a triumph" all round. "It's not the film of the book. It's the film of the film, and to my eye a work of art in its own right."

Le Carré's is the review that matters most, maybe?

He's a novelist who loves his creatures dearly, speaking of Smiley as almost a form of saint, "shouldering other people's burdens and being quiet about it and getting on with the job" - carrying the horse uphill. If he's pleased, that truly signifies.

The good things about the new movie are obvious.

The adaptation by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan is an excellent piece of compression and clarification, though it is sad that it does not open, as the book does, at the ropey prep school where the betrayed and wounded spy Jim Prideaux takes refuge as an unlikely master. In
compensation, there's an extraordinary drunken Circus office Christmas party that is not in the novel, briefly featuring Le Carré himself.

The casting throughout is sumptuous, nothing less.

Colin Firth plays smooth Bill Haydon; Tom Hardy the laddish foot soldier, Ricki Tarr; Benedict
Cumberbatch the faithful tough, Peter Guillam.

John Hurt is wonderfully acid and saggy-faced as Control, the previous head of the Circus, dying early on in the film but happily recurring often in flashback. As his successor, Percy Alleline, Toby Jones is distractingly piggish, just as he needs to be.

Kathy Burke has a great cameo as the alkie sacked researcher Connie, whom Smiley trusts absolutely, delivering the film's funniest line: "I don't know about you, George, but I feel seriously underf***ed." (In the book, she just says: "Give me a kiss, George. Give Connie a kiss.")

The period setting has been very skilfully composed (which was hardly necessary when the 1974 novel, set in 1973, was made for television in 1979). The Circus offices are a superbly dreary lot of cubicles with primitive, pre-digital technology, the place where the traitor is finally confined like a horrible loo in a public park, even the suits peculiarly drab. The look is dim, dun, smokily toxic.

And the way Alfredson has shot the film is highly distinctive too, always finding an unexpected angle, staring through windows, across rooms, visually enacting the way the lonely spies watch each other, apart even when together, always suspicious. Even when colleagues are in a car, the camera wanders around, rather than holding them together. Looking matters here - as Smiley, imprisoned behind his specs, considers his candidates for the mole, they come in and out of focus, an effect Alfredson specially favours.

The film's style is altogether strongly reminiscent of the creepy Let the Right One In, which so calmly regards its horrors. This isn't just a Scandinavian-style Le Carré, though. There are points at which it feels like spies as vampires, bloodless, doomed to icy separation - an effect enhanced by such little touches as spooky wind noises, a fly buzzing in a car, and a play of shadows - especially in the secret house in which the traitor is spied upon himself and captured.

Yet I did not love this latest great British film and even became bored by it, I am sorry to have to report, and so can only recommend it with reservations. I prefer the novel itself, John le Carré's own sublime reading of it on audiobook, and the Alec Guinness version, perhaps even the recent Radio 4 adaptation. Although at two hours the film is much shorter than the mini-series, it nonetheless comes to feel by the end over-protracted, ponderous, even pompous. The slow burn is just too slow. It is measured and meticulous but also mannered. It's admirable, yes, but it fails to move as it should.

Heresy, sorry. Oldman has already been strongly tipped for an Oscar nomination. But I found his impassivity, his po-face, stiff posture, deliberate speech and slow motions, overdone. The idea is that being so frozen, so locked within himself and his own thoughts, when he does make the smallest gesture or expression, it leaps out at you. That does pay dividends, when the quiet man suddenly raises his voice or lets his face show a feeling. But Oldman is never endearing, as Guinness was always. We need to care deeply about his secret sorrow, his deep hurt at being betrayed not just by his colleague but by his wife, Lady Ann - but we scarcely see her.

This Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is cold and remote, which Le Carré himself (his weakness being, on the contrary, sentimentality) never has been. Maybe that's what he admired so much about it.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Over 18s)
Cert: 15

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in