Ellington

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," based on John Le Carré's classic espionage thriller of the same name, is a lyrical poem of intrigue told in bits and pieces of flashback from different perspectives. It has many moving parts, and it is difficult to keep it all straight. I was enthralled at the film's complexity and director Tomas Alfredson's ability to reveal the insights of so many characters, although I had to work hard to follow along, and a few times I wasn't sure if I missed something important. This movie requires a certain level of stamina and patience, but it provides a rare, authentic experience.

Set in the early 1970s at the height of the Cold War, the story unravels from a thorny knot. There's a Soviet snitch in the inner circle of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service. (Those familiar with this elite agency know it as "the Circus," a name which seems spot on for the theatrics within the agency.)

The movie opens in a hazy, messy flat on a dreary day. A crusty old spy garbed in his silk paisley robe puffs on a cigarette while barking out a new assignment to a younger agent (Mark Strong). Control (John Hurt) has heard rumors that a mole is in his organization, and he wants to know which agent it is: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Poorman or Smiley. George Smiley (Gary Oldman) happens to be Control's right-hand man, but even Smiley is not beyond the old man's paranoid suspicions. Smiley solemnly nods. He proceeds to Budapest, Hungary, to recover the treasure. (In spy talk, that means secret information.)

The operation fails. A Soviet spy posing as a café waiter gets trigger happy before the deal goes down and shoots the MI6 agent. A young mother is shot in the head—collateral damage—while her baby continues to nurse. In the fallout from the Hungarian disaster, Circus ousts Control and Smiley, and a cabal of creepy suits, one of which is the mole, are left to their own devices and without oversight.

The head honchos at Circus come in a four-pack: the zealous and ambitious Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), code-named Tinker; the everyone-loves-him Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), dubbed Tailor; straighter-than-an arrow Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds), called Soldier; and the flip-flopping Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), also known as Poorman.

The rumors of Soviet infiltration persist, and eventually the undersecretary hires Smiley to conduct a secret investigation of the organization. Who better to spy on a spy than a master spy? A quiet man of inner strength and dignity with watchful eyes behind large black-rimmed glasses, Gary Oldman's Smiley gives the film depth. He's not a talker, like his former boss Control, but when he does speak, you almost catch yourself leaning toward the screen. Smiley speaks in somber tones, matching the set design.

"He's a fanatic. And the fanatic is always concealing a secret doubt," Smiley explains to a young agent about the Soviet mastermind, Karla.

The script, written by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, combines suspense, narrative and a touch of essay on Cold War politics. Alfredson unfolds this story quickly, dartingly really, so that it can be read at a glance. Similar insights about the characters are told in a flash. We see flying dust in Control's flat, and we understand the man is a relic from the past. Smiley's house is empty. You can almost hear the echo when he walks down the hall. We experience his isolation. There are alliances, but no friends among spies. No wives, either. They seemed to have all walked out long ago.

Though Alfredson overdoses on mood, he creates the right apprehension for an espionage tale. He creates neurotically beautiful grainy visions of disorder in a paranoid world. Sometimes the haze is too much, too exhausting to get to the end. The performances of Oldman and the other brilliant British actors in the cast overcome these weaknesses, however. Despite its flaws, I loved the complexity, authenticity and texture of this thriller.