Kevin's Watch

Saw this the other night and was disappointed. I really enjoyed the TV series which starred Alec Guinness and a host of excellent performances from the British acting top shelf. This movie tries to re-create that, but fails as a movie despite one or two very good individual performances, (especially Gary Oldman). It is just too similar in its protrayal of Le Carres story as told by the TV series.... another example of attempting to fix what wasn't broken.

The movie missed it's real chance to contemporise the storytelling talents of one of the world's best spy drama-novelists, instead trying to set it 'in period'. But that misses the real importance of the setting of the TV series which was the UK at the time of the cold war when everyone remembered duck and cover and the public awareness films about what to do if someone drops an atom bomb on your school! This backdrop gave enormous gravitas to the TV series, however the movie released in 2012 has no sinister feel..... those days are gone and the threats are from elsewhere.

Had they taken this and set it in todays political climate we might be talking about a seriously decent movie, instead its a bit pedestrian and really floats around without a proper context to anchor it to.

Isn't the whole point here Finn that the story in some way draws on the Burgess, Philby, McLean affair and thus would be difficult to remove from it's setting in post war Britain without loosing that connection. I'm not sure if the novel came out originally before Blunt had been exposed and the 'Spycatcher' affair - but I believe it did. Perhaps one of the things that gave the book (and indeed the subsequent TV series) some of their draw was the sense that we were being let in on something that was still an ongoing story - and a secret one at that (The Day of the Jackle perhaps had something of the same about it as well). I did not see the series wherein Alec Guiness cemented his place in TV history, and I am thus exited that an actor of Oldmans stature should have been chosen to play Smiley. I'm very much hoping to pick up in film form what I very obviousely missed in TV so for me the updating you suggest would not be as palatable. We shall see how I get on and be assured that I shall report back once I have seen the show!

Reporting back as promised. I liked this film and (sorry Finn) thought the keeping of the story in it's 1970's setting was the correct approach to make. By mistake I 'spoilered' the end of the film for myself by trying to 'bone-up' on the story before I saw the film. I knew the plot was difficult so I went to Wikipedia to try to get a bit of it under my belt to help me along. Alas the solution was given without warning and before I knew it I knew the films ending. My fault BUT I do wonder how anyone who didn't have my advantage would have followed the plot. Even now there are some things I am unsure of.

Oldman is of course fantastic, as indeed are all of the cast, and the atmosphere is perfect in capturing the shabby grimness of the work these guys were entailed in. The end of the film brings in for the first time some of the bigger ideas about the ethics/ideology of the work - and indeed these guys *did* make a difference. The effects of the work on the family life of those involved is implied rather than explicitly stated and this could indeed be devastating. Family members seemed to be viewed as little more than potential scources of information or indeed levers to be used to exert pressure on the workers - even on your own side - and the aura of distrust that permeated all working relationships in the Circus is explicitly shown.

All in all a great couple of hours of cinema and one that has inspired me to look further into le Carr's novelisation and the real activities of the Cambridge Five.