A Perfect Spy (1987)

Touches You

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

There is a brilliant lesson of sorts here about narrative depth, but you must know the book. Lavishly conceived by Le Carre as his magnum opus, the book is not any other spy thriller you picked up on an airport, it's one of the most tantalizing I know. The center is this, a mysterious man, posing as someone else, is holed up in a small room in Dorset overlooking the ocean and recalls a whole journey through life. The childhood stream-of-consciousness where he attempts to be Faulkner without conquering the madness doesn't work; so much else does. It has a strong sense of presence in several places from Greek islands to Washington, the center of control. It has a sense of anxious premonition about the extents of control. It has a narrator writing a memoir while efforts are underway to apprehend him before he defects to the other side. It has several relationships of ambiguous love defined in his imagination. It has a disappearance in the middle of the night and a strange encounter in a Czech barn.This, it just won't do.The most glaring fault by far is that they simplified the structure, making it a linear telling in one go (practically). The childhood segment works even less because when seen, it loses the shroud of memory. Seeing Rick is never going to be as powerful as sensing him move through room's of the son's memory. It still covers most of the narrative ground but we lose the premonition, we lose the mystifying sense of machinery set in motion long ago and discovered only when the ground beneath our feet shifts, we lose the depth of the betrayal of love. We lose it all and get a nicely groomed play. Its idea of profound emotion is actors grimacing in close up; I was stunned to see that it's from the late 80s, it looks 20 years older.I don't know if this is watchable fiction, maybe it is, but it's a complete catastrophe where it should go beyond it and give us lives, contact, sense, everything Le Carre strove to have it slide through portals of remembrance is reduced to the Cliff notes version.But something weird happens. To see this and to have known the book is to have images of something I've known as deeper, more elusive, more rending and this, for me, was to recall even the book as deeper than Le Carre managed with words. A powerful scene in the film exemplifies just this, when his wife, alarmed by events, begins to read an unfinished manuscript he's left behind, ostensibly a novel he's writing (he says), but she suspects it's more, we know it's more, it's the disguised recollections of a lifetime (this is completely flattened in this linear telling).She cries as she reads about betrayal as hope, as salvation, as an adventure for the imaginative soul, but oh how much more maddeningly full is the life behind the words. His wife, his mentor in the service, will they ever truly know? To know this is to realize how much we won't truly know in turn. There's only so much you can say and so easy to misunderstand. What Le Carre doesn't put to words around this life deserves its Tarkovsky film.

I have just watched the whole 6 episodes on DVD. The acting throughout is excellent - no question. There was not quite enough action for me I must say. No real suspense as such, just plenty of first class character development. Nothing like Tinker Tailor in terms of "whodunnit". If you like a good story slowly and carefully told then this is for you. Peter Egan as the lead Magnus Pym is excellent.The film portrayed the life of a traitor. A man who should have been a loyal member of the British Intelligence Service but who was so damaged psychologically by his unhappy childhood that deception became his way of life in all things. As a child he adored his father but his father was exposed time & time again as a crook and a con man. Pym betrayed not for ideology or money but because he needed to deceive those closest to him (wife, son, mentor). Pym is fatally damaged by his father's influence - it has eaten his moral fibre away. He has no real love or loyalty in him.Heavy psychological stuff and not many light moments in the 6 hour series. Very well done though.

It's been a long time since I saw this mini-series and I am happy to say its remembered merits have withstood the test of time. Most of the components of 'A Perfect Spy', the adaptation of LeCarré's finest novel, in my opinion, are top-drawer. Outstanding aspects of it are the musical score and the masterful screenplay, the latter written by Arthur Hopcraft who was also, I believe, the screenwriter for 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' with Alec Guinness a few years before.The actors are mostly very good, some superb, like Alan Howard's Jack Brotherhood and Ray McAnally's Ricky Pym. Peter Egan is fascinating to watch because his face changes with every camera angle. The passage of time and the effects upon the physical appearances of the characters is very believably done. So much so that I wondered exactly how old Peter Egan was at the time of filming. The only jolt comes after the character of Magnus Pym is transferred from the very able hands of a young actor named Benedict Taylor to those of a noticeably too-old Peter Egan, just fresh out of Oxford. But this is a minor and unimportant seam in the whole.Egan has trouble being convincing only when the text becomes melodramatic and he needs to be "upset" emotionally, ie cry. None of the actors have a very easy time with these moments, aside from the wonderful Frances Tomelty who plays Peggy Wentworth for all she's worth and steals the episode with ease.Jane Booker is annoying as Mary Pym. She has part of the character under her skin but often displays an amateurish petulance that diminishes her as a tough cookie diplomatic housewife, which Mary Pym is. Rüdiger Weigang is splendid as Axel, amusing, ironic and brilliant. I also enjoyed Sarah Badel's camp turn as the Baroness.The British view of Americans is vividly rendered in some dryly hilarious scenes. When the Yanks have come abroad to confab with Bo Brammell (head of MI6) the American contingent are portrayed as empty-headed buffoons who appear to have memorized a lot of long words out of the Dictionary and spiced them liberally with American jargon and psycho babble, much to the bemused scorn of the English. The humor and sadness are subtly blended. LeCarré has a knack for mixing disparate elements in his stories and Hopcraft has brilliantly captured the melancholy, yet wistful, atmosphere of the original.Not a perfect production (what is?) and yet the best of the LeCarré adaptations to reach film or television to date. Highly recommended to all spy-thriller lovers and especially LeCarré fans. DVD available from Acorn.

This is without doubt my favourite Le Carre novel and it is transformed to the silver screen with all the love and care one could wish for. I read a review on this site that seems to find the characters loathsome but I believe this misses the point. All Le Carre stories are essentially love stories and this is no exception. It is an accurate reflection of the period in which it is set. Betrayal is the key by everybody for the good of nobody. Pym upbringing is so close to my own that I find it chilling watching. Peter Egan is in his finest role and the late lamented Ray McAnally is unbelievably good. Even the smallest roles played by such as Andy de la Tour, Tim Healy and Jack Ellis are spot on. This cast is a Theatre Impresario's Dream. The Story should not be spoiled by ill informed description but suffice it to say it relates to a young mans slow but inexorable destruction and descent into espionage and treason. All my sympathies lie with Magnus Pym and his sole (non sexual) love for Poppy (Rüdiger Weigang-as wonderful as always. His only true friendship but also by definition another in the long line of betrayals. OUTSTANDING! Rent it, buy it. love it.