British cinema is apparently undergoing a renaissance. Should you require evidence of this rather brave and ambitious assertion, you could do worse than to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. Despite not particularly expecting to, I loved this film. Such grim, unrelenting greyness, such attention to 70s detail, such realistic characters. Imagine, for a moment, a spy film made in America. The lead actors would be attractive, glamorous, bronzed and lithe – and utterly unrealistic. Instead we’ve got John Hurt, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, the caverns in their faces deep enough to fall into: they look like middle aged civil servants, which is what their characters are. With the obvious exception of the always beautiful Benedict Cumberbatch, naturally.
The characterisations are excellent, starting with Gary Oldman as Smiley, who does British-stiff-upper-lip-but-quietly-falling-apart-at-the-seams to perfection. He runs the eponymous operation, trying to uncover a mole at the heart of the British intelligence service, with the help of aforementioned Cumberbatch as Peter Guillam and Trigger from Only Fools and Horses. He fights against the blank bureaucracy of the ‘circus’, where a group of four men with the spy in their midst try to fight the cold war in half truths and whispered assumptions. And Christmas parties where Santa is dressed as Lenin. Particularly good – by which I mean particularly infuriating – is Toby Jones, perhaps best known as the voice of Dobby in Harry Potter. Here, he exudes the sort of petty irritation that anyone who has worked in an office will instantly associate with the politics of that arena.
Then there’s the photography, which is lovely, despite never breaking from its colour palate of grey with a splash of brown. 70s London looks like 70s Budapest, a subtle comparison which draws in the central observation of the film, that when it comes to the cold war, both sides were far too alike.
Admittedly, this is a film that’s a bit difficult to follow at times, and left me determined to read the book to get more of an idea of the inner thoughts of Smiley. The scene towards the end where Smiley realises who the spy is could have done with a Poirot style explanation round the fireplace – but maybe that’s just me. I left the cinema feeling a prickling at the back of my neck at the thought of spies sneaking up behind me – Tomas Alfredson (the director) has created the world, and now we live in it.
