Matthew Chmiel

A question about the film I had after watching it:


I went in last night expecting a great film and ended up receiving only a good film. The film was well acted and Alfredson knows how to make what should be a boring film stand out, bit at times felt too high concept for its own good. The editing sends large amounts of information out all over the place and its easy to see why people are getting confused. I do disagree with some comments that the film needed to slow down and explain such bits of information like Control's death. If you didn't get it that Control and Smiley were kicked out of the Circus and Control is now dead within that opening credits montage, that's your cue to leave the theater as this wasn't the film for you. Other times, I felt there could've been a few scenes removed for pacing's sake, such as:


Once the actual reveal of the spy is made, it's more of a, "Really? Is that it?" reaction than one that should've had more gravitas to it based upon the build up the film had already established. However, I loved the film's final moments using Julio Iglesias' rendition of La Mer as the characters' fates were sealed.

Don't get me wrong as I thought Tinker Tailor Solider Spy was a good film, but it's not a great film.

Burnt Thru

I don't think they really had a full on gay relationship in the sense we think of it nowadays. More of a daliance in the vein of upperclass boys exploring their sexuality and friendships. A bit like women having a lez experience at college.


Being gay was seen as a sign of weakness at the time which might have left someone vulnerable to being manipulated. Therefore people hid it and were consequently ripe to be blackmailed. As such gay people were not considered a good investment in the spy game back in those days. The series of British double agents who betrayed their country and were also gay (and from Oxbridge) was probably an important bit of background to that particular scene.

BTW I agree with your assessment that it was a good but not great film. What a cast though. Almost perfect, in fact. But it was a shame that Cieran Hinds wasn't given something more interesting to do as he's a favourite of mine.

Matthew Chmiel

I didn't know this particular fact about British double agents, so thank you. However, the scene doesn't impact the film in any particular way. If the two minute segment was left on the cutting room floor, nobody would've known differently. There were a few of these moments scattered throughout that could've been removed to make a tighter film.

It's crazy that Michael Fassbender, David Thewlis and Jared Harris all had to bail out due to scheduling conflicts. However, in terms of Fassbender and Harris, we got Hardy and Jones instead.

The only thing missing making the cast perfect was Bill Nighy.

Hmmm...

Fuck it. I'm going to Working Title to pitch a satire of the film with Nighy playing the Smiley character. The Brits will eat it up!

Burnt Thru

Yeah, it was more of a background feeling (or setting) scene for the movie. It did provide some reference point for the need of the real mole to keep his gay daliance secret though. For Cumberbutch I thought it was a great moment for his character and showed his devotion to Smiley.


Wasn't aware that those actors had to drop out - crazy, crazy cast! The Guiness TV series must have a great reputation still.

Nighy is absolute gold over here, no doubt about it. Think it must be a little confusing to him considering how late it has come in his career.

BTW Bill played Smiley (effectively) last year in a TV movie called Page Eight. It's similar to Tinker Tailer in many ways and about as good. I'd recommend it if you haven't seen it already.

mdc3000

Wow - this movie was excruciatingly slow. I didn't have a hard time following the main threads of the story, but felt they were all presented so flatly, I never really got into it. The characters weren't engaging, we don't know enough about anyone to really care and the mystery of the mole is unspooled so slowly, that by the time we came to the conclusion, it wasn't riveting satisfaction I was feeling but relief. Relief that the movie was over. Oldman was fine, but out of his STELLAR body of work, THIS is what gets him the Oscar nod? This quiet, whispering in a trenchcoat dullard? Fuck.

It does have a phenomenal cast and there were some great scenes, but overall a major disappointment to me. I love spy flicks but this has to rank as one of the most boring movies on the subject ever. If anyone thought 'The Debt' earlier this year was on the slow side, look out.

zekeburger1979

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: A Guide for the Perplexed

It seems everyone here was confused about what exactly happened in this movie. Roger Ebert tweeted this link a while ago and I thought I would share it here. I can't wait for the BD to come out so I can buy and watch this movie a couple more times. The more I think about it, the more it sinks in.

Oh yeah, Gary Oldman finally has an Oscar nomination! Woohoo!

Matthew Chmiel

Just finished reading the article and wow. I'm appreciating the film a bit more now after reading that.

Thanks!

wendersfan

I loved the movie, but I've also read the novel several times, and seen the miniseries. I sat through the movie wondering how in the hell anyone who's not read the book could possibly get what was going on.

DonnachaOne

I felt that I had understood the film fine, and like David Bordwell alludes to, I felt the film was more concerned with how the tendrils of the spy game permeates the sad lives of all involved, and not so much with solving the mystery. Still, his essay made for brilliant reading, and the fact that I missed so many of those details makes me look forward to a repeat viewing all the more.

Osiris3657

I thought this film was really good. I was never bored at any point like others who disliked it. I thought it was an intriguing premise that was skillfully put together.

Daytripper

"The Debt" was a roller coaster ride compared to this film. And honestly, I didn't even find that movie slow. But this? Agree with everything you said.

RoadToPerdition

Saw this today and I have no clue what happened for about 75% of the movie. I haven't read through this whole thread to see if people were as confused as I was, but I feel like I was fully engaged and paying attention to the movie and still had no idea what was going on. The two other people I saw it with were in a similar boat. I enjoyed the last 20 minutes or so but besides that... disappointingly bad.

EDIT: Okay, read through the thread and glad to see I was by far not the only confused moviegoer. Also, I notice people commenting about the gay relationship, but wasn't it Cumberbatch's character that was obviously gay? Wasn't there a scene where he broke up with his live-in partner or am I confused about that scene, too?

HistoryProf

just a voice to offset the complaints: this is #2 on my top ten for 2011 list (behind Le Havre and ahead of Drive) and I loved every frame. I had seen the original mini series, so that helped, but also absolutely love Cold War stories in general. I didn't have any particular problems following along...but again I knew the general arc so I had that going for me. As a construction, I think it is absolutely brilliant, and don't see how it could have been made any better given the source material. And Gary Oldman blew me away - I was skeptical of his casting as Smiley, but he was utterly phenomenal. he deserved the best actor oscar.

If you like spy thrillers see this film.

bluetoast

I really want to see this again. My theatrical experience was abysmal, trying to follow along on top of that was even worse.

Solid Snake

why was it abysmal?

bluetoast

Long post alert.

Okay first of all I went to go pick up my friend to see it. He had already seen it, and was interested in going again. The movie starts in like 10 minutes, and I'm at his place, we're probably 20 min away minimum, and on top of that we have to park, and this is in D.C., so that's not the easiest thing to do on the fly. I'm like "Maybe some other time, or another movie at the same place, because we're really cutting it" but we end up agreeing to go.

So we had some adventures driving around going in and out of a parking lot where I find out the prices were through the roof, before actually getting a good spot on the street. Of course at this point the movie had already started. So we had maybe an hour or so before the next showing....

So now we figured that we could buy our tickets, then eat somewhere. So we got a meal, then went to the theater, got some concessions....and realized...holy shit, the only seats available were in the FRONT. And it's not like we arrived when the actual movie began, this was when the first trailer was starting. Also this was before it got the wide release, so I can understand crowds, BUT, it was on December 30 (just glanced at my ticket stub), not a weekend, and this was a small screen. I guess the holiday crowd was in full swing.

Fine. That kind of sucks, but okay. It also had subtitles at the beginning if I remember, so that's also no fun to read in the first row. For a bit, my friend was talking with me about the idea of sitting in the aisle. Then, midway through, my friend realized that the parking spot that I got earlier was about to run out, so he himself wanted to pay, so I got my keys out and he left for a while. So that was in the back of my head while watching, like "damn, he's been gone a while, where did he go, also I hope I didn't get a ticket." Then he shows up like 20 minutes later and proposes we sit in the aisles to get a better seat. I finally agree....

And we go sit in the aisle. Nope, actually first we stand for like 20 minutes, and then I'm finally like "fuck standing" and sit down on the stairs near the aisles, while he stands for the whole remainder of the movie. There was also another dude also standing there, so it wasn't just us who thought the aisles were better than the actual seats.

On top of all that this movie wasn't exactly Transformers, so pretty much every time that I turned around, sat down, looked away, or got interrupted, I would be missing key info.

So in conclusion, I would definitely like to see it again in a more relaxed setting.

Solid Snake

Streaming on Netflix now...

inri222

Good film with an excellent cast and a great restrained performance from Gary Oldman.

Solid Snake

Never got to see it. And the BD is too high still. Dunno how this one never went below 10 bucks.

Paul_SD

you should be able to get it from your library

Solid Snake

Yeah. But I want to own it.

Paul_SD

yeah, but you could sate your desire to see it and then bide your time waiting for the price to drop
(which , of course, is advice that I don't follow myself)

Solid Snake

Well that's why I bumped the thread....cuz it's on Netflix now.

RocShemp

Just use the price tracker feature on Blu-ray.com. Once the title gets to within $3 of your desired price, you'll get an e-mail notification.

Solid Snake

I just use the camelcamelcamel price tracker, Camelizer, for Amazon. I also keep track w/ bluray.com... just in case.