Thursday, 29 January 2015

Smiley’s People (1982)


☆ ☆ ☆ ☆


Smiley’s People (1982) – S. Langton

The second series (made from Le Carré’s third novel in a trilogy) wherein George Smiley (Sir Alec Guinness) gets a whiff of Karla after being called out of retirement (what again?!?) to deal with the funereal affairs of an Estonian ex-pat agent he once ran.  Unlike in Tinker Tailor where we are thrust directly into the affairs of the Circus, the plot here takes a while to unfold and we don’t actually meet Barry Foster (new chief) until well into the series (and then really only briefly).  Instead, Smiley is out and about across Europe, meeting some strange characters, and finally mounting a campaign with Toby Esterhase (Bernard Hepton) at his side.  Amazingly suspenseful, with nothing really determined until the last 15 minutes, but Guinness is grimmer (seeming older) and Le Carré’s world is definitely hollowed out.



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