I used to write film reviews for a variety of websites, but since I’ve started the blog it doesn’t seem quite right somehow, don’t know why. But I did go and see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy recently and people asked me what I thought, plus there is a story to tell so I thought I’d include it along with what would have been a review. Hopefully this won’t be too much like that god-awful Ain’t It Cool News guy…
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So I'm staying at a hotel in Birmingham on a job with work. No matter how much I can eat at an All You Can Eat Breakfast, there is an all-pervading sense of loneliness away from the home comforts. I decided to go the movies one night, armed only with money and the Navigation app on my phone directing me to turn right and keep walking for half a mile, until I got to the multiplex. Didn’t stop me checking it every few seconds though.
It was the first time I’d queued up for a cinema ticket in years. Terrified of my must-see flick being sold out or forced to sit in those seats in the front section that cause neck and spinal injuries from hunching the head upwards towards the screen, I’d always booked over the internet.
But this time I queued up with the everyone elses, aware of the special circle of loser hell reserved for those asking for one ticket to a movie. No date, no life.
“One for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy please” I said, displaying my wedding ring as prominently and obviously as was decent.
“How many was that?” said the cashier.
Thanks. Thanks for that, cashier lady.
“One please” I repeated, hoping to add, “I have a wife you know!”.
This temporary humiliation averted, I proceeded upstairs to the screen room. Were this in my hometown, I’d have made it to the cinema with the exact amount of time to park the car, collect the tickets and make it to the screening room AFTER the previous patrons had left their earlier screening, but BEFORE the adverts of our screening begin; thereby avoiding any further awkwardness finding our designated row and seat in the dark, all the while tripping over outstretched legs and the general tutting of other cinema-goers as they half-heartedly move aside to let you pass.
Not so lucky. In my efforts to be on time walking to a new location I’d arrived 15 minutes early, so as the film was still running, I had to hang around outside the screening room feeling like even more of a loser.
When it finished and the goers burst out there’s then the obligatory clean-up of popcorn and whatever else, so tack on another few minutes hopping from one foot to another.
It was then that across the waiting area, the woman with quite possibly the loudest voice in the county, said to her two male companions
“So, was ACTOR’S NAME actually CRUCIAL PLOT INFORMATION NOT REVEALED UNTIL THE END DIVULGED BUT SUPPRESSED HERE then was he?”
Oh yes” said her male companion. ACTOR’S NAME most definitely is MORE CRUCIAL PLOT INFORMATION DIVULGED BUT SUPPRESSED HERE.
This is what happens when you arrive too early for a film, by yourself. It’s my fault, I know. So anyway, here is my review.
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In 1973, following a botched rendezvous in Budapest with a prospective defector during the cold war, senior members of MI6, George Smiley (Gary Oldman) & his boss “Control” (John Hurt) are moved along from their positions into retirement. When an agent in the field comes to believe that there may be a mole working for the Russians deep inside MI6, something long suspected by Control, Smiley is recalled to sniff him (or her. No, balls to that, it’s a him) out.
Adapted from the novel by John le Carré and originally a multi-part TV series starring Alec Guinness in the role now taken by Gary Oldman, TTSS is less about the plot; being as it is, fairly straight-forward to grasp, and more about the period detail and the comment on the workings of the intelligence service. That is, trust no one.
It’s revealing that Oldman (in a career game-changing performance, inverting his typecast manic personality) does not speak a word in the first 10 minutes or so of the film, merely watching others and carrying on, as he would have done his entire professional life.
This is a film about secrets, the men who keep them, and others that search for them. Working at the “Circus” means not only leading a double life away from your friends and family as you’re unable to divulge the details of your work, but also from your own colleagues in case they're after your job, or helping the other side.
This is by no means an easy film to get into. It’s slow, deliberately slow, as if the film-makers were making their anti-Spooks credentials as clear as possible, and consists of an ensemble cast (Harry Potter-levels of British acting talent) in turn making a case for being or not being the mole, which Smiley has to surgically pick apart.
In the background is the sense of a different time, where the gender roles were more rigid, and the declining place of Britain’s importance in world affairs wasn’t as obvious. It’s the study of a world where the old values of loyalty, trust and honour are increasingly threatened by ambition, treachery and the ruthless pursuit of power. And it’s a threat that is never completely arrested. By all means do go and see this film, but set your brain to study.
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After the film was finished, the group of six or so people to my right (and blocking my path to the exit) stayed to talk about the film instead of doing what almost everyone else does and bolt for the exit, so I had a fun time squeezing past their non-existent efforts to move.
On the walk home I moved past increasingly drunker and drunker young people as they stood outside various pubs and clubs of Birmingham’s night life talking in very loud voices. As I’ve recently stopped drinking it made me even more detached from the rest of society and even older than I would feel normally. Did I miss their revelling, even as my other work colleagues were off out on the town that same night? I can honestly say I didn’t.
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