Film
Bristol Film Festival: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
- Director
- Tomas Alfredson
- Certificate
- 15
- Running Time
- 127 mins
There’s a strong whiff of Trebor Mints, Harp lager and stale ashtrays about Tomas (Let the Right One In) Alfredson‘s suitably grainy and downbeat adaptation of the John le Carre spy classic. But while this is a Cold War period piece in which duplicitous grey men (they’re all men, apart from Kathy Burke with a rather alarming posh accent) who have no lives outside the deskbound end of the espionage game scheme against one another in grim, windowless rooms at ‘The Circus’, the prize is a familiar one: favour with the Americans, who view MI6 as leaky and shambolic.
The story has Control (John Hurt) and Smiley (Gary Oldman) ousted after a mission went disastrously wrong in Budapest. Subsequently summoned back from retirement after Control’s death, Smiley is charged with finding out which of his former colleagues has been a long-term double-agent, the chief suspects being weaselly Alleline (Toby Jones), suave Haydon (Colin Firth), gruff Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and insecure émigré Esterhase (David Dencik). Working under Smiley is dedicated Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch, in the Watson role for a change), while hot-headed field agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) is the closest the film gets to a traditional movie spy figure.
Despite the languid pacing and lack of action, Alfredson delivers some impressively tense set-pieces in his atmospheric, elegantly flashback-driven portrait of this murky, squalid world where rival camps seek to establish fiefdoms. The performances are uniformly excellent, with Oldman particularly impressive as the fastidious, emotionally desiccated Smiley, who’s betrayed personally and professionally.
is needed now More than ever
Appropriately enough, this Bristol Film Festival screening in Averys’ historic wine cellar includes a mystery wine tasting in which you’re invited to select the odd one out. Note that this event is open to over-18s only. Go here for further information and ticket details.