Review of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) by S3Ver14N — 30 Jan 2022

The basic premise of this movie is so simple; there is mole at the top of the 1970's British Secret Service. Or is there? Is it really a ploy by Soviet intelligence to destabilise the service? George Smiley, a retired agent is recruited to untangle a complex plot of deceit, bluffs, double bluffs, and betrayal amongst his former colleagues, all triggered by a mysterious soviet intelligence director.

There is no doubt that this is deep stuff - the plot is complex, and you do have to submit to not being led by the nose through it; at points you have to simply accept scenes for what they are, without fully understanding them at the time. Mostly you can piece them back together in the last 30 minutes, but a second run through is great to fully complete the puzzle, and even then a few things are left to personal interpretation. After watching it, have a quick google about people's interpretations, especially of the final few scenes; fascinating stuff, especially when combined with people's knowledge of the TV series and book.

That might put people off, but I hope it doesn't, the broad strokes of the plot are actually not hard to understand, but you do have to watch and think; it really is like a puzzle, and if you're concentrating, you can actually figure out who the mole is well before the end; it's entirely logical.

The cinematography is great; yes it's super bleak, but as a child of the sixties I really feel like it feeds into the sense of paranoia that really existed about our relationship with the Soviet Union. Speaking of which, of course the most obvious aspect of the time is that we lived under the fear of "the bomb", but what isn't talked about so much is that we were at war with the Soviet Union and everyone knew it. Films and TV series of the time such as the Harry Palmer movies and indeed the TV version of Tinker Tailor were obviously fictional and dramatised, but they brought about a genre of gritty topical spy fiction that doesn't really exist in the cinema now, and this movie brings it back to modern audiences so incredibly well, providing they have the patience to engage with it.

In summary, top stuff, engage brain, pay attention and you will be rewarded by this excellent, atmospheric, regeneration of 70's spy drama.