Impression: The best thing about this movies is Dame Judy Dench. It’s an interesting story, that probably could have made an interesting movie. But, that’s where the good things about this movie end. I think this is likely the worst British movie I have ever seen. It’s like the British equivalent of a Lifetime Special. All my experience until now with British cinema has been that you can count on a movie to be well written and acted. It’s possible the subject matter may not interest you, or that you find it boring, but it’s invariably been well written and acted. I don’t know what exactly went wrong here, but but this one just wasn’t. The acting from most (other than Dench) was over the top, and/or stilted and the writing cringey.
It claims to be loosely based on a true story. There was a British woman who in her 80s was arrested for having been a Soviet spy during World War II, and she made a confession in her suburban garden. And the spying had to do with the work on the atomic bomb. The rest of it: the over the top love affair, the over the top friends, the blackmailing of the gay government official, the bad acting; I can only assume those were all made up. It’s hard to tell if it was just the writing that was bad, and it translated into actors having to make badly written cliché pronouncements about science and morality, or the actual acting was bad too.
I watched this in two parts: in the first part an elderly woman is arrested and flashbacks of the backstory are revealed: becoming involved with a group of young enthusiastic communists and falling in love with the charismatic Leo. It seemed a bit cheesy and formulaic, but I was willing to wait for the story to develop. And Dench was great, as always. So I stared the second part excited to finally get to the spying and intrigue. Unfortunately, it just prolonged my misery by subjected me to more scenes of Leo using JoJo for information, and calling her his “little comrade” while staring deeply into her eyes whenever he wanted to manipulate her, and JoJo pouting. Sonya as the ridiculous cell leader and oversexed girlfriend at least provided some comic relief.
In conclusion: Too much smooching, not enough spying.
Facts: An old woman in the modern day English suburbs is arrested for treason during World War II.
My Buddhist reading: I can’t get over my disappointment over this movie. It had so much potential. I guess, my Buddhist reading is to try not to get too attached to hoped for outcomes. Be more ok with a movie being bad.
Apes Don't Read Philosophy 