Can stand-up save this marriage?

 

  Bradley Cooper keeps his camera close to his actors in Is This Thing On?, the story of a New York guy who steadies his life during a separation from his wife. How? He tries his hand at stand-up comedy. 

   Cooper's movie focuses on Alex Novak (Will Arnett), a guy who works in finance. Alex seems dejected by his separation from Tess (Laura Dern), his wife of 20 years, but he's not doing much to buck the tide of marital failure.

  Parents of two 10-year-olds (Calvin Knegten and Blake Kane), the Novaks don't argue or ever seem to fret about money. We're asked to assume that their marriage has gone stale. We're also told that the two 10-year-olds are "Irish twins," siblings born in the same year.

   The breakup goes smoothly enough. Tess and the kids remain in the Novaks' suburban Westchester County home, and Alex finds an apartment in the city. He buys a VW van to transport the kids back and forth.

   A bit at loose ends, Alex discovers stand-up almost by accident. Wandering around his new neighborhood, he spots The Olive Cafe, a club that looks inviting. In the club's basement, comics use open-mic nights to polish  their acts.

   To avoid the club's $15 cover charge, Alex signs up to do a set. On stage, he begins talking about the new phase of his life. He's doing what he thinks a comic might do in his situation.

  Cooper shows a fair amount of Alex's burgeoning act, which centers on his new status as a single guy. He has a few clever lines and learns how to work an audience, but -- in my view, at least -- he's not especially funny. 

   The odd and slightly disturbing thing about Alex's journey doesn’t get much play. What’s Alex’s  public display about? Does he really require a microphone to get on with his life? Is he just another part of our current moment of hear-me excess?

   Alex and Tess have a circle of friends, but Alex develops a new cohort, aspiring comics who are trying to find a breakout moment. 

   Scenes with real comics (Jordan Jensen, Chloe Radcliffe, and Reggie Conquest) add authenticity, as does Amy Sedaris, who plays a showbiz-savvy booker. The movie needed more of her.

   Cooper mostly stays off-screen. A thick bushy beard functions almost as a disguise. He plays Alex's buddy Balls. (Hey, it's in the credits.) An old college pal of Alex's, Balls works as an actor, but his career seems wobbly. 

   Disarmingly credible, Dern's Tess, a former Olympic volleyball champion, tentatively approaches the idea of expanding her horizons. Tess decides to revitalize her routine by becoming a coach. The upcoming Los Angeles Olympics beckon.

   A pivotal scene arrives when Tess goes on an impromptu date -- her escort is played by Peyton Manning -- and winds up at a club where Alex performs a bit in which he reveals that he's had his first sexual encounter since the breakup. 

   Initially miffed, Tess responds to Alex's frankness; it seems to re-light her spark, and Alex begins, as he puts it, "an affair with his ex-wife."

   Is This Thing On? might be Cooper's least momentous directorial effort. His previous work teamed him with Lady Gaga in a remake of A Star is Born, which he followed by playing Leonard Bernstein in Maestro, a look at the emotionally conflicted life of a musical genius.

   Aside from a couple of group gatherings, the  supporting cast remains on the periphery. Andra Day portrays Balls' bitchy wife. Christine Ebersole and Ciaran Hinds appear as Alex's parents. Hinds has a nicely anchored scene with Arnett toward the end, but the movie belongs to Arnett, whose likability   keeps Is This Thing On? from derailing.

    Is This Thing On? was inspired by the true story of English comic John Bishop whose experience resembled Alex's. I guess such knowledge, revealed in interviews with Cooper, shows that Alex's transition to comedy isn't as far-fetched as it might initially seem.

   I wasn’t enthusiastic about Is This Thing On? The  movie is tolerable, but Cooper doesn't find much bite in its two-hour and four-minute runtime -- either in Alex's stand-up or in the movie itself.  

   

A boy's life during "The Troubles"

 

   In 1969, Protestants and Catholics were at one another's throats in the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Bombs ripped through urban neighborhoods, people were beaten, and an atmosphere of fear and rage prevailed. 

   Despite the turmoil, normal life never entirely disappeared. Kids played on their blocks, and not every Belfast Protestant spewed hatred for Catholics who wanted Northern Ireland to sever ties with Great Britain.

    Kenneth Branagh wrote and directed Belfast, a movie that captures a slice of life during the terrible times when Branagh was a kid. Branagh, who also wrote the screenplay, shows us Belfast through the eyes of nine-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill), a boy whose dad (Jamie Dornan) commutes to construction jobs in England. Buddy's mom (Caitriona Balfe) holds things together in Belfast, the city the family regards as home.

   Grandma (Judi Dench) and Grandpa (Ciaran Hinds) are close at hand and Buddy movies easily between both households. His older brother (Lewis McAskie) isn't seen quite as much. 

    Branagh makes some interesting stylistic decisions, the most important being to film mostly in black-and-white, interrupting with color for scenes in which the family attends movies. 

    In the theater, a world of color opens for the family as they watch films such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and One Million Years BC, not exactly high art but welcome escapes from daily tensions. 

    High Noon plays on TV, a moral drama that mirrors some of the struggles faced by Dornan's Pa.

    Van Morrison, who hails from Northern Ireland, provides a score that fits the proceedings and, although the movie doesn't shrink from violence, it often adopts the dreamy tone of events seen through a filter of memory and longing. 

   Street violence juxtaposes with the tenderness of family life and Buddy’s youthful innocence. He has a crush on a fellow student, for example, presenting her with flowers, a touching gesture of unashamed love.

    It's not surprising that Buddy has no idea how to react to the events around him. When rioters crash into a local supermarket, he grabs a box of detergent and takes it home to his mother. 

    As someone who regards Protestants and Catholics as equals, Dornan's Pa faces pressure from local toughs who want him to join a neighborhood gang that's taking up arms against Catholics. Pa knows that it won't be long before the violent Protestant partisans take revenge on him for refusing to fight.

     He’s involved in a tug of war with his wife, who’s reluctant to leave the only home she has known. 

    The episodic nature of the movie wears a bit thin, but overall, Belfast paints a telling picture of a family forced to decide whether to endure devastating turmoil or pull up roots.

     In a better world, they never would have had to make such a choice.

    

'Red Sparrow' doesn't fly high

Jennifer Lawrence takes up the role of a Russian spy.

Those damn Russians will stop at nothing when it comes to advancing their cause.

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No, we're not talking about interference in the last presidential election, but about the spycraft that tends to shape relations between Russia and the rest of the world.

Of course, we're also talking about a movie in which the Russians have invented a special spy-training agency that teaches men and women the fine arts of seduction and manipulation. Humiliation and intimidation are used to turn female students into "whores" for the Motherland, wiping out any traces of propriety or pity.

Those who make it out of the program are called Sparrows.

The aptly titled Red Sparrow stars Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika Egorova, who -- at the movie's outset -- is an acclaimed star of the Bolshoi ballet. Dominika’s career comes to an abrupt end when her leg is broken by a clumsy dance partner during a performance.

Eager to preserve her Bolshoi privileges — mostly for the sake of her ailing mother — Dominika follows the advice of her sleazy uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts), a man who happens to be a part of the Russian intelligence establishment. Without knowing exactly what's involved, Dominika agrees to be trained as a Sparrow.

Working with director Francis Lawrence, who directed Lawrence in a couple of Hunger Games movies, Lawrence (Jennifer, that is) has no trouble portraying a powerful woman who learns to walk the fine line between convincing her superiors that she’s all in with the Sparrow program and trying to preserve some of her personal integrity.

That’s no easy task considering she’s working for a branch of the intelligence service that believes her body belongs to the state.

Added to the mix are an American CIA agent (Joel Edgerton) who offers Dominika a way out of her complicated predicament, Dominika’s hardened instructor in Sparrow World (Charlotte Rampling), another Russian intelligence agency big-wig (Jeremy Irons) and the head of Russian intelligence (an under-utilized Ciaran Hinds).

Much has been written about Lawrence’s nude scene, which reveals most (but not all) of an actress who certainly has the charisma and smarts to carry a movie that’s presumably trying to attain franchise status. Lawrence creates a bold, sexy character who's also capable of calculated bursts of fury.

Unfortunatley, Lawrence isn't enough to save the day. A convoluted plot, boiled down from a novel by Jason Matthews, results in an often murky spy drama enriched by a variety of locations — from Moscow to Budapest.

The movie attempts a somewhat tepid romance between Edgerton’s CIA man, a character who finds himself on the outs with the CIA after he blows his cover protecting a source. Edgerton gives a muted performance that dampens any sparks that could have enlivened his relationship with Dominika. p>
The movie's atmosphere isn’t one defined by virtue. Many of the characters are advancing personal agendas, notably, an American traitor portrayed by Mary-Louise Parker who has possession of floppy discs that both the Russians and Americans are eager to get their hands on.

There’s no point dwelling on a plot that generates too little suspense, but it should be noted that Red Sparrow includes a brutal scene of torture which many will find difficult to watch.

Downbeat and doom-struck, Red Sparrow doesn’t reflect the kind of intricate intelligence that defines spy movies adapted, say, from the work of author John LeCarre nor does it offer the brash pleasures of overstated action we associate with movies with blockbuster aspirations.

The result: A medium-grade thriller that relies on Lawrence and a reliable cast, but which comes off as watered-down and more than a bit weary.

Superheroes unite to save the world

Justice League may not be great, but it registers as OK.

When I was a kid, the only thing I liked about getting haircuts involved the well-stocked stash of comic books that the neighborhood barber kept in his establishment. I consoled myself about the discomfort of itchy hair down the back and ungodly applications of hair tonic by visiting Gotham and Metropolis or maybe even Smallville, the town where Superboy was still finding his superhero legs.

I took solace for my impending misery in Clark Kent's square-jawed righteousness as a mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet and in Batman's colorful gallery of villains -- the Penguin and Joker. I loved the blocky apartment buildings that defined the urban landscapes of the cities where these Manichean dramas unfolded.

These were comics made for the clickety-clack of typewriter keys, for Clark Kent's fedora and for the overwrought prose of melodrama: "The Batman, having lost his way on a lonely by-road, stops before a lone house to ask directions. Suddenly, from the house comes a scream of a wild beast in pain ...."*

I get no such kick from the current wave of comic-book movies, which typically contain bloated action sequences that rely heavily on CGI, so much so that the villain in League of Justice, the latest entry from DC Comics, is a CGI creation called Steppenwolf. In tones that sound as if they've been augmented to suggest sonic boom, Ciaran Hinds provides Steppenwolf's voice.

Justice League, which brings together a quintet of superheroes (Batman, Cyborg, Flash, Wonder Woman and Aquaman) can be judged decent by current standards and it certainly represents an improvement over the somber and self-serious Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).

This episode has been directed by Zack Snyder, who ceded control to screenwriter Josh Whedon when Snyder, who directed Batman v Superman, left the production to be with his family after the death of a daughter.

The resultant movie isn't nearly as dark as Batman v Superman and pretty much functions as a foundation for the next installment, as well as a lively introduction to several superheroes who are new to the big screen.

Early stages of the story involve Batman's attempts to assemble a crew to fight Steppenwolf, a villain in horned-helmet who's trying to gather three mysterious boxes so that he can unleash their power and bring about (what else?) the apocalypse.

This set-up requires the movie to do some quick backup work in the form of abbreviated origin stories for Flash (Ezra Miller), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and Aquaman (Jason Momoa).

We already know Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and, of course, Ben Affleck's Batman. Not quite as gloomy as he was in the previous movie, Affleck's aging Batman isn't exactly charismatic, either.

These early sections work well and include the usual amount of extended action, which often seems more aimed at satisfying audience appetites for noise than advancing the story.

The main problem with the movie involves its villain, an off-the-rack menace who commands minions of flying, bug-like demons who feed on fear.

Gadot, who earlier this year established Wonder Woman as one of the best comic-book franchises, acquits herself well as a member of the emerging Justice League. Equally engaging is Miller, who has been given the lion's share of the movie's wisecracks. Another welcome presence, Momoa turns Aquaman into a tattooed rogue whose attitude ranges from casual to cynical.

The story unfolds against a backdrop of doom. Since Superman's death in Batman v Superman, villainy has erupted and the world has lost its knight in shining armor. Henry Cavill, who plays Superman, is listed in the movie's credits, but I won't tell you more about how the Man of Steel figures into the story.

The movie's superheroes must hold their egos in check and unite to conquer evil; saving the world proves to big a task for any single superhero. "Stronger together" didn't quite carry Hilary Clinton to the heights she hoped to scale and it doesn't totally work for Justice League, either, but the movie has entertaining elements and enough superhero chemistry to keep the DC wheel spinning toward the next movie.
*I have this quote on a Batman comics cover and linked to it. The link didn't take and I couldn't find the source again, but you get the idea about the overheated prose.

A middleweight's amazing comeback

Bleed for This tells a powerful story -- but doesn't always do it with distinction.

Boxing movies long have been a staple in Hollywood's repertoire with Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull still topping most lists of big-screen punch-outs.

Bleed for This, the story of Vinny Pazienza's amazing career in and out of the ring, stands as a medium grade, often dreary look at a man who sustained what should have been a career-ending, spinal-cord injury.

Instead of going down for the count after a devastating car wreck, Pazienza returned to win the middleweight title. His feat has been dubbed the greatest comeback in boxing history.

The minute you sit down to watch Bleed for This, which stars Miles Teller as the Rhode Island-bred "PazManian Devil," you know that the movie will end with videos showing the real man. Fair to say, surprise isn't the movie's strong suit.

In the hands of director Ben Younger (Boiler Room), Bleed for This revels in the working-class atmosphere that spawned Pazienza. The film takes place in a rough-and-tumble Italian American milieu with numerous scenes of Pazienza's family gathered around the dining room table, their Rhode Island accents thick enough to float in Narragansett Bay.

Younger offers a straightforward -- if condensed -- account of Pazienza's career, which certainly qualifies as a wonder of sorts.

After his injury, Pazienza was told he'd never fight again. Ignoring the diagnosis, he began training soon after his release from the hospital, an activity made more difficult by the halo that had been screwed into Pazienza's skull to hold his neck in place.

Two relationships bolster the story; one involves Pazienza's trainer Kevin Rooney (Aaron Eckhart with a dramatically receding hairline); the other centers on Vinny's father (Ciaran Hinds).

Hinds's performance has a kind of scowling rigidity that never entirely convinced me, but the movie tries to make its dramatic weight with a scene in which Hinds's Angelo Pazienza wonders whether he hasn't pushed his son too hard, and is, therefore, partly responsible for Vinny's plight.

Pazienza's relationship with Rooney doesn't have much by way of psychological subtext. The alcoholic Rooney helped Pazienza establish his career by encouraging him to move up two weight classes. Later, Rooney helped prepare Pazienza for a comeback that seemed impossible to everyone but the fallen fighter.

Teller doesn't have the physical bulk of the real fighter, but he gives the movie his all and the fight scenes are mostly convincing -- if cinematically routine.

Younger does a better job showing the physical pain involved in Pazienza's retraining. The most difficult scene to watch is one in which a doctor removes four screws from Pazienza's skull and drops them into a waiting receptacle. After three months, the halo was replaced by a neck brace.

Because the movie mostly celebrates Pazienza's determination, it doesn't waste much time counterpunching; i.e., considering the idea that a man who can't see any other role in life but that of a fighter might be tragically limited.

Pazienza's story obviously makes a strong subject for a movie, but Younger and company can't bring the movie to total victory -- either as a Rockyesque source of inspiration or as a Raging Bull-influenced hunk of tormented realism.

In fight-movie terms, I'd call it a draw.

'John Carter' aims at Mars, but misses

John Carter may not be a dud, but it's not the one we've all been waiting for, either.

Disney seems to shopping for a new franchise with John Carter, an action adventure taken from A Princess of Mars, the first in a series of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels centered on John Carter, a Civil War veteran who is transported to Mars. Originally published in 1912, Burroughs' novel has been the basis for a variety of comic book series that achieved popularity among some boomers. Maybe that's why Disney put its money on a piece of sci-fi that originated long before the words “high tech” entered the popular vocabulary.

If I were a betting man, I’d wager against the development of a major John Carter franchise, at least if the first movie is any indication. John Carter isn’t awful. It is, however, determinedly retro, and if you didn’t know it derived from Burroughs, you might find it to be a bit retro, a bit cheesy and mostly lacking in the kind of golly-gee enthusiasm that sometimes saves movies from looking ... well ... cheesy and dated. Worse yet, as played by Taylor Kitsch, the main character comes off as bare-chested and bland.

Director Andrew Stanton (WALL-E and Finding Nemo) doesn’t seem to have had as much luck making the leap to live action as Brad Bird, who went from The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille to the breathless achievements of Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol.

At two-hours and 12 minutes, John Carter has a few fun moments, but it also can feel as if it's laboring under its own weight, and several of the most interesting supporting players -- Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, and Thomas Haden Church - are unseen, providing voices for CGI characters such as Sola, a.k.a, the green martian woman from Thark.

The story transports John Carter to Mars (never mind how) where he finds himself battling with the Tharks, reptilian-looking creatures with tusks, long faces, four arms and a language that requires subtitles.

Tharks alone are not sufficient fodder for a movie this sprawling, so the plot tosses Carter into the middle of a battle between warring cities of red-skinned Martians, who look like humans who've spent too much time at the beach. Goaded by Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) of Helium, Carter ultimately drops his neutrality and joins the battle to keep Helium from being dominated by the wicked Prince Sab Than (Dominic West). There's even more plot manipulation thanks to another group of evildoers called The Elites.

To add another level of complication, Sab wants to marry Princess Dejah Thoris. Her father (Ciaran Hinds) consents to the wedding to keep Helium from being destroyed.

Of course, Carter and Dejah Thoris are the movie’s real romantic item, and by the end, Stanton manages a small tug at our oft-plucked heart strings.

I could have done without the 3-D, which seemed to be used to no special advantage, and John Carter includes a fair amount of Martian gibberish that would have been unbearable had it not generated a few unintended chuckles.

Oh, I almost forgot. On Mars, Carter discovers that he’s able to make giant leaps into the air; this newly acquired power, a result of diminished gravitational pull, helps him to survive and to become an effective fighter, including in the obligatory scene in which he battles giant creatures in an arena.

The movie, however, hardly represents a giant leap when it comes to action/adventure: I can't say John Carter generated the excitement a burgeoning franchise needs, and it certainly didn’t make me crave another helping.

It may not be groundbreaking -- but it's creepy

Daniel Radcliffe tries to shake Harry Potter in an eerie, if familiar, hunk of horror.

It’s always a bit puzzling when a character in a movie decides to spend a considerable amount of time in a house that we know is haunted. Such situations -- common enough in horror movies -- put the audience a couple of steps ahead of the characters and tend to turn horror films into predetermined rituals that deliver their shocks with time-table efficiency.

The Woman in Black -- a new hunk of horror based on a London stage play -- more or less fits into such a standard horror mold, but does a good enough job to merit attention. At its best, The Woman in Black -- set in the early part of the 20th century -- is plenty creepy.

Part of an attempt to revive a venerable name in British horror, Hammer Films, The Woman in Black also is notable as a starring vehicle for Daniel Radcliffe, known to most audiences as child wizard Harry Potter. In The Woman in Black, Radcliffe plays a young lawyer who’s sent to a dreary English village to organize the papers of a deceased woman. Radcliffe’s Arthur Kipps, is also a widower with a young son. He leaves the boy in the care of a nanny when he sets out to tackle his legal assignment.

Upon arrival in this bleak rural village, Kipps receives the cold shoulder from the townsfolk, who warn him not to go to the deceased woman’s home, a dilapidated mansion outside the town. The townsfolk, of course, have a point. Every time someone visits the rotting old manse, one of the town’s children meets with a gruesome end.

As it turns out, the mansion is the real star of the movie; it has been designed to push as many spook buttons as possible, replete with cobwebs, clutter and creepy-looking wind-up toys. As Kipps sorts through papers he finds in the mansion, he begins to sense movement around him. He sometimes catches a glimpse of a ghostly lady in black, who seems to dart around the periphery of the frame.

The core of the movie rests on fun-house effects and how Radcliffe responds to them. Alas, Watkins gets more mileage from the former than from the latter. You’d think that by now, Radcliffe would have mastered the art of reacting to special effects, but he goes through most of The Woman in Black without showing much personality.

He does, however, evince steady sprays of gleaming-eyed intensity, as well as a bit of stubble, perhaps to reassure us that his boy-wonder days are done.

The supporting players add old-pro polish. Ciaran Hinds plays Mr. Daily, one of the few locals who’s kind to Kipps. It turns out that Mrs. Daily (Janet McTeer) has gone round the bend as the result of the loss of her young son. Mrs. Daily treats her small dogs as replacement children. The twins, as she refers to them, eat in high chairs at the same table as the Dailys, an image that offers one of the movie's few humorous moments.

With a movie such as this, a lot depends on how all the creepy threads ultimately are pulled tight. The ending, which immerses poor Kipps in what looks like a ton of marsh mud, tends to be a bit overwrought, but stops short of ridiculousness, and the British countryside has been photographed by cinematographer Tim Maurice-Jones in forlorn fashion that speaks of an impenetrable loneliness. The light in the movie looks as cold as the underbelly of a dead cod.

If you think about it long enough, you’ll find some subtext here, but you may prefer (with no apologies necessary) to enjoy the movie’s encompassing atmosphere of dread, its ability to give you the chills and the effective way it doles out the kind of jolts that tend to shriek their way through moments of eerie silence.

'Tinker, Tailor' has mood to spare

It may not always be crystal clear, but Tinker, Tailor has plenty to recommend it.

I admit it. I sometimes became confused watching Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a big-screen adaptation of John Le Carre’s 1974 novel. Frustrating? Yes, but there also were times when I found the movie so atmospherically right I didn’t care whether I could dot every “i” or cross every “t” in Le Carre’s labyrinthine plot.

A bit of background. Dense with character and incident, Le Carre’s novel does not naturally lend itself to adaptation. In 1979, it took the BBC seven episodes to translate Le Carre’s novel into a comprehensible drama. The great Alec Guinness starred as George Smiley, the world’s least emotive spy.

Those familiar either with the novel or the BBC series immediately will know that screenwriters Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan faced a monumental task. Fair to say, they haven’t entirely succeeded in taming Le Carre’s novel.

But in the case of Tinker, Tailor, mood and background may be as important as a plot that, in its overall arc, is easy enough to follow.

Here’s the gist: We’re nearing the end of the Cold War. The British intelligence agency – known to its employees as The Circus – is in the midst of a power shift. A group of rebellious spies is trying to unseat the agency head, known as Control (John Hurt). They succeed in ousting Control, and his most reliable operative, George Smiley (Gary Oldman). Control subsequently dies.

All of this turmoil begins when Control initiates a search for a mole who has penetrated the highest levels of British intelligence.

In keeping with the feeling of institutional decline, Tomas Alfredson -- who directed the terrific Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In – gives the proceedings a bracingly severe tone. From the start, it’s clear that Alfredson has total command of the movie’s look.

Following the story isn’t made easier by the fact that the screenplay employs a flashback structure that can be disorienting. And the screenplay’s refusal to explain any of its spy jargon doesn’t help either.

But I doubt whether you’ll find a better supporting cast in any movie this year. Populating the spy ranks are intelligence bureaucrats played by Colin Firth, Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones and David Hencik, all of whom are superb.

And in Hurt, Alfredson has found an actor whose weathered face does as much to suggest institutional collapse as any plot developments could. Hurt crops up at the beginning and in some flashback scenes, and he gives the movie a cynical weight that's indispensable.

Then there’s Oldman, whose restrained performance as Smiley has been praised in the British press and elsewhere. To play Smiley, Oldman slows his delivery and explores the lower octaves in his vocal range.

He can be brilliant. A scene in which a drunken Smiley reenacts a long-ago interrogation of a top and much-feared Soviet agent delivers the goods, and is punctuated by Oldman’s slight wobble when Smiley finishes his story and attempts to stand up.

But there are also times when Oldman’s restraint seems to lack resonance. Smiley has been through a lot. His wife Ann (never seen in full view) has left him. He has endured the endless sordid battles of Cold War spying. He’s been pushed aside by the agency that has dominated his life. He's hardly the kind to vent: Still, I found myself wishing that Oldman had taken us a little past Smiley’s purposefully blank expressions.

Maybe Oldman, who functions as the story’s principal investigator, didn’t want to take anything away from his fellow actors. In a scene in which George meets with Connie Sachs (Kathy Burke), a former intelligence emplyee, Oldman watches while Burke creates a telling portrait of a woman whose romantic impulses were channeled into admiration for her co-workers. It's a great small piece of work.

Although it falls short of perfection, and although, as I’ve said, Tinker, Tailor can be confusing, it always feels intelligent, partly because of Alfredson’s skillful direction and partly because there’s not an actor on screen who doesn't seem smart in some way.

Tinker, Tailor includes sexual betrayals, references to torture and fierce intra-agency battling, but instead of going for cheap thrills, the movie immerses us in a world-weariness that fits its historical moment. Alfredson may not fret about whether viewers sink or swim with the plot: But surely he wants us to swim in the same murky waters in which the characters bob, looking for something to grab hold of.