Swedish director Tomas Alfredson is not particularly well known in North America, but nowadays, anybody and anything Swedish is kind of hot. And he did an excellent job in directing a group of stellar British actors - Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and Benedict Cumberbatch.
I can't remember how many times I've seen John Hurt performing as a spy in movies. Toby Jones is just omnipresent nowadays in all British movies. And Mark Strong, for once, is not acting a villain's role. This is a dream flick for spy-movie fans like me - very few women (in fact, only one young Russian and another older Brit) who all play supporting roles. M16 has always been an old boys' club, and still is in its present days.
Everything is so old-fashioned in this movie, and deliberately so. In spite of its Cold War era, it's still very relevant to contemporary espionage. Everything is a code name in this movie and you will spend the entire time trying to follow the names of the characters and wondering who the mole is. Of course, things are not what they seem and nothing is genuine in fiction as in reality.
Gary Oldman is constantly compared to Sir Alec Guinness who played George Smiley in the BBC TV series. From the way the reviews are going, the former probably will earn an Oscar nomination. I might be having too great an expectation of the movie, so as a result, I just found it intriguing but not outstanding. This is a movie that takes a lot of thinking and close following, so my advice is only go see it when you're in top condition. It is enticing enough for me to buy the Le Carré novel after seeing the movie.
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