Review of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) by Nicole T — 03 Mar 2015

Still one of the best suspense movies I have ever seen, to rival Rear Window or Zodiac Tinker Tailor is a John LE Carre written masterpiece with an all star cast of Britain's best and brightest, across generations. Swedish director Tomas Alfredson of Let the right one in fame and Swedish-Dutch DP Hoyte van Hoytema, also of Let the right one In fame but also Interstellar, the fighter, Her and the upcoming Spectre create a grimy, visually mesmerising film that you can't take your eyes off of. The soundtrack is slow and bone chilling, moreso than most two-bit horror movies that make the rounds around Hollywood nowadays and the plot... The plot is convoluted and hard to follow, slow to build up momentum and quick to discharge it in dead ends and double agents. it is incredibly hard to follow for the average viewer. As it bloody should be.

This is a John le Carre movie, not a Ian Fleming one. Smiley isn't a suave ladies man but a broken, misanthropic, extremely calculated chessmaster. And what is a chessmaster without a chess set? Characters move around like pieces on the gameboard of the movie stretching our attention span and endlessly double and triple crossing others for gain and country. If you can't muster up the brainpower to follow that, c'est la vie but that hardly makes the movie's intricacies unsuitable for the screen. It adds to the atmosphere and the value of the movie immensely elevating it above run of the mill suspense thrillers.

Still one of my favourite movies featuring a great cast, score, beautiful but restrained cinematography and a fantastic storyline, Tinker, Tailor gets better with every rewatch.