Rich man, Poor man?

I had no idea how this was going to turn out, cherishing a long love of Alec Guinness work. My memory of his 'Smiley' seemed  unassailable and Gary Oldman a bit of an odd choice but if ever there was an actor who grabbed a role and ran with it, it is Oldman in this.

He is surrounded by a stellar cast of English actors, John Hurt, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy  and many more, moving through the grimy air of cold war Europe. If it was possible to feel the chill radiating from the grim little apartments and squalid streets the superb camera work does it for you...thats over and above the wrecked lives and entrenched sexism. Nevertheless they still managed to sqeeze in some of the glamour and glitz of those days as I remember them.

There is a sense of ever present threat and also the feeling that WW2 was not long over and memories and hard times not gone yet. Sex and alcohol seem to have taken the the place of love and the love that dared not speak its name, dared only be underground or gone. Women are whores or saints. Its not a musical.

Near the end, when they are closing in on the rat in the ranks you see how the 'team' pull together in an almost balletic sequence of threat and intimidation which took my breath away. And like a fool I had not realised why they called the character 'Smiley'. I do now. Oldman glides through these scenes with the same amiable appearance he has used to comfort and entertain.

If you want to see what a Cold War can do to those who are set up to prevent a warm one, see 'Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy'. And see if you can spot 'Le Carre' in his cameo role.