The movie is needlessly slow

Rating: Null/10 (9 January 2012)

I read Tinker Tailor as a novel and thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the fact that LeCarre unfolds the tale slowly and uses flashbacks. This a tale that requires flashbacks, for if the tale were told sequentially, it would strike the audience as tedious. And while it's true that the PBS rendition used all six hours to enjoyable purpose and never bored the viewer, this movie failed, not because 130 minutes was not sufficient to tell the tale, and not because it used flashbacks. This movie failed because it moved at a snail's pace to no valid purpose. This movie failed, not because the viewer was confused, or because the characters did not emerge fully formed and with known history, but because it dragged to the point of irritation. The director totally misused and wasted wall clock time in filming and cutting this tale. A better director, a better editor, could have conveyed the dreariness of ruminating in the circus over bits and snatches of not much and a sense of thoughtful tradecraft on the part of Smiley, and others, without forcing the viewer to watch Smiley swim in a pool on three occasions, stare at chess pieces with faces taped to them without explanation, watch Smiley and Guillam stand in the middle of Control's flat rather than search it, and on and on and on, scene after scene where nothing, literally nothing, happens that advances the story or conveys mood. It is unlikely that this movie will be held over for a second week and even less likely that ten years from now film enthusiasts will be going back to it or discovering it for the first time.