firecat

I saw the TV miniseries on PBS and read the book, so I was okay, but I definitely think that if you didn't pay attention like a hawk for the first 45 minutes or so, the overall movie wouldn't have made that much sense. Unfortunately, it would have been 45 minutes attending closely without that attention helping at all with understanding what was going on in those 45 minutes --- it all seemed primed to come together in an "ah hah!" moment at minute 46 as long as you paid really close attention up to that point. Which would have frustrated me if I didn't have some idea where the story was going to begin with.

As for Oldman's Smiley --- the thing is, Smiley is a bit of a sociopath. He sort of has to be in his line of work. He sends people to their deaths (that bland face when he's sending Ricky back? Chilling, chilling, chilling!), arranges all sorts of unspeakable things in his job and it there's always this idea lurking that it isn't all for Queen and Country. I actually thought Oldman's wobble on the stairs at the end was a little out of character for Smiley, because while he loves Ann he's more than happy to use her as his single weak point that his enemies get overly focused on while he's off end running around them. Still, Oldman did a wonderful job with this role.

It was interesting, I thought, that they through in Peter Gwilliam being gay. It made for a lovely scene, but the novel was clear on the gay relationship between the mole and Jim. So was the TV miniseries (Ian Richardson and Ian Bannen had, I remember, a very touching scene st the end). The movie, not so much. Interesting, too, that 1980s British TV showed middled-aged homosexuality while current British films transfer the relationship to a much younger character. (And by interesting, I mean a bit irritating to my sensibilities, but not ennough to have ruined the movie for me.)