Not bad, but not progress

Rating: 7/10 (19 April 2015)

I wouldn't recommend reading all John Le Carre's books - they can be a bit same-y - but 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy', about the uncovering of a mole within the British intelligence services, is a perfectly judged thriller, a spy-cum-detective story set against the backdrop of perceived national decline. The book was also the basis of one of the greatest television series of all time, perhaps owing to the fact that this is an ensemble story, allowing a collection of some of the finest British character actors of their generation to play off each other. Alec Guinness's portrayal of retired secret agent George Smiley is widely considered to have been his finest role; but arguably, Ian Richardson and Michael Aldridge also gave us their best stuff in this series. So one attraction of a remake, this time as a movie, is that it gives another generation of actors the chance to shine. But one question is, what can the film add to what the book and television series have already done? And while the movie doesn't butcher the source material, I fear the answer is not much. Of course, it's hard for a fan of the earlier work to watch with neutral eyes. Where the casting seems consistent with that used previously (John Hurt as Control, for example) everything feels fine; where not (Kathy Burke as Connie) it just feels wrong. More objectively, one can say that the inevitably more compressed format loses retains the mood of the original but loses the broader focus on the whole range of protagonists; when the mole is finally revealed, we care less because we know less about him. One can also note that in places the script departs from the book unnecessarily, but with the effect of losing subtlety and also plausibility: there's no reason for Irina to be shot in front of Prideaux, for Smiley to catch his wife in flagrante, or indeed, for Smiley to take a gun to his meeting with the mole, except to ram home a point that was better left implied. The soundtrack is also peculiarly deployed and contrasts with the unbeatable opening music and introductory credits of its predecessor. This doesn't make this a bad film; but if you watch just one version, pick the other one.