Tinkered and tailored to perfection

Though Intro to International Relations professors may paint the Cold War as a nostalgic period of simple bipolarity, in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the period’s politics were anything but straightforward. The Cold War of British novelist and retired spy John le Carré is dizzyingly complex, and offers no reassurances of the West’s moral superiority. Swedish director Tomas Alfredson is the latest to take on le Carré’s work, adapting his novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy into a film with a star-studded cast led by Gary Oldman. Thankfully, Alfredson abandons none of the book’s complexity in this stylish, throwback spy flick.

Oldman stars as George Smiley, who has recently been forced out of “the Circus,” of  MI-6 . The reason has to do with his boss, played brilliantly by John Hurt, who goes stark raving mad. Soon enough, as the old action-movie trope goes, the retiree is approached and begged to take on “one last job.” Smiley is told that there is a mole at the highest level of the Circus, and he is to investigate, from the outside, four of his former colleagues. It would be futile to go into more detail, but the key spooks are played by a very strong ensemble, including Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Toby Jones, and Mark Strong.

Oldman plays Smiley convincingly, remaining restrained in an intense part and appearing about fifteen years older than he really is. Oldman is in a precarious position with the role, as Smiley is an iconic literary character in the actor’s native Britain, and was once played by Sir Alec Guinness in a beloved BBC miniseries. If there is one disappointing performance in the film it is that of Firth, who brings little more than stutters and fidgety grins to what should be the film’s most nuanced role. Instead, that title goes to Strong, who plays a burned spy and spurned lover.

Alfredson is an impressive stylist, and does not settle for using foggy, dreary London scenes to convey shadiness and suspense. Production designer Maria Djurkovic created an elaborate fortress within the walls of the Circus; her most striking set is a hermetically sealed boardroom at the core of the building, covered in gold-colored sound-proof foam that Alfredson imagines is “drenched in cigarette smoke and whiskey breaths.” Hoyte Van Hoytema’s camera is like a Soviet agent, following Smiley down streets and corridors. Many of the shots are short and silent, and dialogue often spills over into the next scene, as if it is being remembered by the characters.

Despite being a spy movie, Tinker does not have too much action, and proves difficult to follow for those unfamiliar with the book. Alfredson doesn’t seem concerned about leaving people behind, and he expects a lot of inference on the part of his audience. The camera never shows the faces of key characters, and important romantic histories are implied through glances alone. The reveal of the mole’s identity is tense without being overplayed, and a memorable denouement resolves the story to a well-placed bit of period music.

This is Alfredson’s first English-language feature; his previous effort, the moody vampire love story Let The Right One In, was a critical darling. This entry confirms his reputation for tackling clichéed genres with strong source material and photography to please the art-house crowd. But at a recent roundtable with D.C.-area press, Alfredson asserted that Tinker isn’t a genre piece or specific to the Cold War. “The story is very much about loyalty and friendship and betrayal, and those subjects are eternal,” he says.

What does Oldman think is eternal? “The world’s a mess,” he said, “and it’s perfect. It always has been.” Now that sounds like something a Cold Warrior might say.