Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Saturday, December 10, 2011) (114)

I was totally expecting Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to be a very typical mystery/spy movie with twists and double twists and lots of Cold War stuff with secret tapes and the Berlin Wall and all, but it's actually a whole lot more than that. Director Tomas Alfredson (who previously made the Swedish Let the Right One In) does a lot with a very well-written script (by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, adapted from a book by John le Carré) and probably brings more to the story from a directing point of view that most movies I've seen in a long time.

The story is about a double-agent in the MI6 agency who is working for the Russians spying on the British spies from within during the early 1970s. George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is relieved of his duties largely due to a botched job and then becomes obsessed with finding the leak, which nobody else seems to notice or care about. The title comes from the code names for three top-level spies in the agency, Tinker, Tailor and Soldier. Smiley conducts interviews with agents who have recently been in the field, in Budapest and Istanbul, and gets a young agent to help him get documents out of MI6 to examine so he can find the rat within. We see flashbacks to earlier days in the intelligence service, where Smiley is trying to put small details in order to try to solve the case.

Alfredson creates a world with a wonderful motif of frames and windows. Almost every shot has some sort of frame or window in it, or is in a room with no frames and no windows. The concept of deeper and deeper levels of security is constantly present, interestingly undermined because, of course, we know there's there's a double-agent in the midst. There is one amazing shot of a British spy watching a Russian agent in his hotel room through the window from across the street. This Rear Window homage is not only gorgeous, but also underlines how important the concept of perceiving oneself to be safe and the freedom to move within such a space really are in the spy game. Even the wonderfully stuffy wool suits the characters wear highlight these themes, as they all have waistcoats, adding yet another layer of material to their bodies and helping to frame each of their faces.

The film is a collection of old and young British actors from John Hurt, Colin Firth and Oldman, to younger up-and-comers like Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and Benedict Cumberbatch. All of them are really fantastic, though Oldman and Hardy stood out to me the most.

This is one of the best spy movies I can remember seeing in a long time and a really excellently made film. It's sometimes a bit confusing with the time lines and knowing if we're in the past or the present, but it does all turn out to make sense by the end. There are wonderful small details throughout that would make it a joy to see a second time, I'm sure.

Stars: 3.5 of 4