Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy -- the passable movie from the terrific book

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a film directed by Tomas Alfredson, based on the 1974 novel by John le Carrie.

The new Tinker Tailor movie, based on the John Le Carrie novel, is absorbing and passably entertaining, especially if you've recently read the novel (as I did), or saw the brilliant seven-part PBS series twenty-five years ago (as we did). It's dense with murky circus interiors and damp gray street scenes. Gary Oldman as George Smiley is a little too prim and reserved for me. The guy barely registers a raised eyebrow through the whole film.

The plot is about Smiley's mission to uncover the mole in British Intelligence, the mole responsible for sending information to the Russians (this is the cold war, late 60s), and for drumming out Smiley himself and his boss, Control. It should be exciting. It almost is. With so little time -- just over two hours -- and a long list of characters, it's difficult for the movie to hook us into the emotional lives of the characters. The screenwriters do a good job of compression, but you can only do so much. Cinematically, I found the scenes of Smiley in his cheap hotel room too similar to the other interior scenes in their grayness -- we don't very much distinguish the emotional and physical environment of Smiley and his team from the other interiors.

If you haven't read the novel or seen the old series, you might be baffled by the whole thing. I'd like to hear from someone without those background experiences.

I'd also like to hear what current veterans of the British Intelligence services think of the movie. Were the internal competitive politics so ridiculous?

The book is terrific. So was the old PBS series with Alec Guiness. If you experience either of those after seeing the movie, you'll see what you're missing.