Oscar Odds and Working Title's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
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Apparently there is nothing more divisive than an English art house film that few people have seen.
On the one hand, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is rated by many reviewers as a stolid example of strong, literate, heritage filmmaking at its best. On the other hand, TTSS, released in the United States by Focus Features, whose parent-company trail ultimately leads to Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), hasn't impressed the public -- yet. As a result, Tinker Tailor seemingly has little chance of sweeping the Oscars on the level of last year's The King's Speech when the next Oscar nominees are announced on Jan. 24.(1) This, despite the movie having been nominated for numerous British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards over the last weekend. The BAFTA awards will be presented on Saturday, Feb. 12, and the winners of this ceremony sometimes anticipate Oscar winners -- in 2011, for example, The King's Speech and The Social Network were big winners in essentially the same categories as their Oscar counterparts.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was released in Britain by StudioCanal UK, a division of Vivendi (OtherOTC: VIVEF.PK), last autumn. Based on John Le Carré's bestselling novel published in 1974, the tale charts the efforts of MI6 agent George Smiley as he returns from forced retirement to track down an undercover agent in his one-time organization who has been in the employ of the Soviet Union for decades. It's a complicated book yet also (like most mysteries) really just a series of interviews with very little in the way of "action" in between -- which isn't to say that there is no suspense. A long passage in which Peter Guillam, one of Smiley's assistants in his secret quest, must spirit away a file from headquarters, is especially alive on the page.
Not only was the book popular and led to two sequels, but it has been adapted to BBC radio twice, and was turned into a 7-part BBC mini-series.(2) The TV version of TTSS is much beloved. Keith Olbermann laid claim to having seen the show some 30+ times and carved out a portion of a recent episode of his nightly Current program, Countdown, for a rave review of the movie adaptation.(3) The current issue of the Canadian film magazine Cinema Scope has a lengthy and detailed account of TTSS and other le Carré adaptions by two articulate enthusiasts, which gives an example of how the book and the show have gotten into the blood stream of some viewers-readers.
The results are mixed. In some cases the changes necessary to make the story fit an 127-minute movie are astute. Others seem arbitrary. For example, the script, credited to Peter Straughan and the late Bridget O'Connor, seems especially interested in motivation, and there is a good (and I think new) line of dialogue added to Smiley's famous speech about his nemesis and opposite number in the Soviet Union, Karla, referring to Karla's fanaticism as a mask for fundamental uncertainty. At other times, the writers don't seem to understand the novel they are adapting. They confusingly fudge the introduction of a key if minor character, Ricky Tarr, whose information ignites the hunt for the mole.
Because of the work's heavy flashback structure, Gary Oldman as Smiley is fitted with new eyeglasses in an early scene, so that later we the viewers will be able to tell when we have bounced back into the past again, based on which specs he's wearing. An MI6 office Christmas party is a clever way to compress information about attractions and betrayal among the staff, but the sequence results in Smiley suffering rather unlikely "in your face" news of his cuckolding that more seems inspired by the antics of various studio executives at Hollywood bashes then in the uptight world of professional voyeurism.
Guillam (played marvelously by Benedict Cumberbatch, TV's Sherlock) is made pointlessly gay in the film, in order to repeat an already iterated statement about the personal costs of spy work. The film also gives Smiley a "happy ending," while le Carré prefers to dwell amid murkiness and ambiguity. TTSS is just the sort of adaptation of a beloved source that fans are going to pick over, but which for all the chatter doesn't necessarily create "buzz" or positive word of mouth. This writer, a TTSS enthusiast, saw the film four times with four different types and sizes of audience. Many liked the film, but others were bored, and found the story difficult to follow. The film is hard to comprehend if you haven't read the book.
The BAFTA award process is confusing, divided between initial long lists and mentions that are eventually reduced to five for each category before the winners are presented on Feb. 12. This year's Oscar best film category, though, may rival the BAFTAs for complexity by introducing a new and complicated weighted system, decided on by the board last summer. TTSS's 16 "mentions" may be illusory, however. Something called chapter picks is apparently the real indice of voter interest, and in that regard, the faux silent film The Artist may be the favorite with its 10 chapter picks to Tinker Tailor's eight.
On the other hand, as writer Tom Brueggemann noted recently(6), "At every step of its release over the last few weeks, TTSS has outgrossed The Artist when playing at the same theaters, often by a large margin. This has not gotten as much attention as it should." So Tinker Tailor's Oscar chances may not be so dim, especially given its Oscar win-and-nom laden cast, among them, last year's best actor winner, Colin Firth. So, as usual, the Oscar odds remain ambiguous. Like life in a le Carré novel.
(1) At 5:30 am PST at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The Oscar award ceremony broadcast itself airs on ABC, Sunday, Feb. 26.
(2) In its slightly truncated PBS version, the mini-series is in six parts.
(3) Comcast also owns 10% of Current's parent company, Current Media, Inc., founded by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt.
(4) These figures come from IMDBPro.
(5) The multitude of divisions and subsidiaries in film production make it difficult to "support" a particular film, artist, or division; rather, the investor has to buy stock in the parent company and make it healthy.
(6) On a side note, there are few things more irritating than a writer coming up with the same idea for a blog post as you and publishing first.
Fool blogger D. K. Holm does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this entry.
