WASHINGTON — The men who populate Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy are spies, but they’re not the kind you usually see onscreen. They have expanding stomachs and receding hairlines. Their suits are hardly suave. They don’t look like they would be of much use in a car chase or a gun fight, and they probably don’t particularly care whether their martinis are shaken or stirred — as long as they’re strong.
Director Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) sets out to create a different kind of spy movie, one that embraces the genre’s inherent ambiguities and complexities. It’s a quiet, intelligent film more interested in mood and characterization than empty spectacle.
“I like when you consider the audience grown-ups, and when the audience can actually participate in the film experience,” he said while speaking to reporters at a roundtable at The Ritz-Carlton in Georgetown. “In too many films, everything is defined, and there’s no room to take part.”
“Don’t you find that films are very loud? They assault you,” said the film’s star, Gary Oldman (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2), nodding in agreement. “They think you’re stupid.”
Talking down to the audience is the last thing Alfredson could be accused of. He’s created a complicated, even difficult film, but he’s OK with that.
“This particular genre should be complicated, should be hard,” Alfredson said. “You shouldn’t fear insecurity. You shouldn’t fear not understanding. Things may come to you slowly, and that’s OK.”
The film is an adaptation of John le Carré’s 1974 novel of the same name, which is now considered to be one of the genre’s masterworks. It was previously adapted as a widely-beloved 1979 BBC miniseries starring Alec Guinness.
Tackling such a well-regarded work is a daunting task and brings a unique set of challenges and expectations. This was especially true for Oldman, whose performance had to stand up against Guinness’s.
“The shadow of him loomed large. That was the obstacle for me — to not be fearful of the inevitable comparisons,” Oldman said. “I didn’t want to get contaminated by it and end up doing some half-assed impersonation.”
The film is set during the middle of the Cold War, but that hardly makes it irrelevant to today’s political situation, which isn’t as dissimilar to the world of the film as it would seem.
“Has it really changed very much? It’s just the places that have changed, the opponents that have changed,” Oldman said. “The world’s a mess. And it always has been.”
Still, the film isn’t really about international relations. The film’s distance in time from the period it portrays allows it a more nuanced, human perspective than a film focused on the moment it inhabits. Dogma hardly factors into the film; there’s little to no mention of communism and democracy. It’s a movie about people, not politics.
“The spies and the Cold War are just a backdrop — a very interesting backdrop,” Alfredson said. “This story is very much about loyalty, friendship and betrayal, and those subjects are eternal.”
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy opens in limited release in the Washington area on Friday, Dec. 16th.
rgifford@umdbk.com
