Every person matters

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2015)

Amidst the megahits of Q4 (is winter the new summer?) comes this quiet sleeper from Steven Spielberg. It's a chamber piece defined by soft words and silent gestures. Even the true story upon which it's based is a relatively unseen bit of history. Although it's such an interesting story, you wonder why.
You've seen the big beats in the trailer. But this is a movie of details as tiny as the secret messages that unshakeable Russian spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) receives on the sly. He's captured and fast-tracked through the American justice system. Insurance lawyer Jim Donovan (Tom Hanks) represents him, but he's powerless against a guilty-by-default verdict.
Then the Ruskies capture a US spy and an American student. As a US citizen ostensibly representing no one but his clients, Donovan is bunged off to a divided Berlin to negotiate a swap: one Russian for two Americans. The devil's in the detail – and, as Donovan discovers, there are so many damned details.
Spielberg is cinema's top craftsman. We know this. But he does little here to draw attention to that consummate skill – and I mean that as a compliment. The "quiet camera" of Lincoln continues. And as a story it's as much a humanitarian one as Lincoln, although the script here (sharpened up by the Coen brothers, who are presumably to thank for the plentiful ironic humour) is less labyrinthine, less grandiose. More on-the-nose.
So is Thomas Newman's music, sadly, which sounds like one imagines a Spielberg movie should be scored, all sugary clarinet softness. It jars with the austere Cold War mood and only really making sense in the final scenes, where a creeping schmaltz lurks. The Lives of Others this ain't.
That's not to belittle the human emotion the film possesses, which is mostly convincing. Abel's "standing man" speech is a keeper. But beyond that, Bridge of Spies is a film of Big Themes: what nationality means; what professional duty means; and the arbitrariness of national borders. Donovan is genuinely baffled by the hypocrisy of his superiors, regarding Abel as merely a human being doing a job – the same job many US spies are asked to do.
Rylance, subtle and dignified, is a shoe-in for a Supporting Actor gong. Hanks, meanwhile, makes it look effortless, somehow forging a relatable everyman out of an iron-nosed lawyer. These are actors at the top of their game.
Intense, involving, and intelligent: if you're looking for something patient and quietly moving at the multiplex, look no further. It might look like minor Spielberg, but it's a major dramatic success.