- As a huge fan of cinematic minimalism and understatement, I'm always impressed when I encounter a piece of work so subdued that even I begin to wonder if someone involved should have their pulse taken. Either this film's dead or my DVD player has paused, I suppose. Director Tomas Alfredson's adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is very nearly that type of story. At the very least, it is inarguably a painstaking and methodical examination of a set of nearly interchangeable ageing British spooks in suits who could not possibly form a more stark contrast with those colorful denizens of MI-6 who populate the James Bond universe. Fortunately, the film is directed, written, and acted effectively enough that its stolid impenetrability is not a complete impediment to success.
- Strangely enough, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy's most taciturn character, a man named George Smiley (Gary Oldman), is also its star. As you may have surmised, Smiley has one of the more ironic last names ever bestowed. He may not be the craggiest man in the film, an honor that surely belongs to his cantankerous late boss (John Hurt), but Smiley stands out as being emotionally unavailable even in a room that includes such austere countenances as those belonging to Toby Jones, David Dencik, and Ciarán Hinds. Only a fellow agent named Haydon (Colin Firth) comes across as a charmer in the group. Doubtless that is why Smiley's wife fell for Haydon some time ago. How she thought she could pull one over on a bloodhound like Smiley is anybody's guess.
- As the film shifts through time with an impressive fluidity, the events implied to matter most are a botched mission in which an undercover agent named Prideaux (Mark Strong) is shot, the subsequent firing of Smiley and his boss, and a Christmas party from some time ago that may or may not contain clues to this entire sordid affair. There is also the small matter of a missing British agent named Tarr (Tom Hardy), who swears that there is a mole in the upper echelons of MI-6. Needless to say, Tarr's reliability is somewhat called into question by the facts that he's been on the run and appears to have fallen in love with an also-missing Russian informant (Svetlana Khodchenkova). Somehow Smiley and his redoubtable assistant (Benedict Cumberbatch) have to sift through all of these stories to determine what is real, what isn't, and what secrets sit quietly in the film's dimly-lit margins waiting to be noticed.
- As far as recreations of 70's spy thrillers go, it's difficult to imagine a much more accomplished product than Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It's got the wonderfully jazzy music, the turtlenecks, the smoke-filled rooms, and the authentically big hair. Furthermore, it features a stable of actors perfectly suited to their roles as old men whose secretive natures and petty bickering make it impossible to tell whether or not their cloak-and-dagger paranoia is justified. Unfortunately, the film is also suffused with such a hypoxic air of cool detachment that the entire affair, as well-constructed as it may be, seems more befitting a waxworks museum display than an examination of actual human behaviors. Maybe it's a great film for people who really do envision their fellow homo sapiens as chess pieces, but those of us with beating hearts may find ourselves yearning for a little more humanity in our dramas.
