Tense story in brown rooms

Rating: 8/10 (15 December 2012)

The critics were certainly correct about the tense atmosphere and the rather morose feeling engendered by the drab, brown, smoke-filled rooms that feature so much in this film. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy evoked the atmosphere of my youth to a degree, probably more so than the TV adaptation. It is apparently set in the 1970s although I took the drab colours as being more indicative of the 50s.
The acting is uniformly good from a stellar cast and the story gradually unfolds with the director maintaining a felling of tension throughout. It is a good yarn well told.
However, there were a few things that I did find a little bit disappointing:

The dull brown settings which were so interesting to start with, became rather tedious after a while. I am, not convinced that everything was brown in the 70s.

After over 2 hours, I really did not feel that I knew any of the main characters (even Smiley) other than at a very superficial level.

-The frequent use of flashbacks was rather disorientating and I am not convinced that some of them added anything to the storytelling.
I was initially worried about seeing Gary Oldman in the George Smiley role, so brilliantly portrayed by Sir Alec Guiness in the TV series. It turned out that Oldman was well up to the task and made a very credible Smiley. Was it as good as the TV series? Possibly not, but then the TV series had the advantage of having 3 times as long to develop the themes and characters. But it was a creditable effort.