mrclever Review of Smiley's People

Smiley's People (1982)

Terrific acting, but pointlessly altered story

[6/10 · 11 June 2005]

This cold war spy story is now rather dated, but the terrific performances hold up well. I watched it twice through, however, and the story still didn't add up. Wanting to find out what the "real" story was, I read the book and was quite surprised at what was done with the story. Movies often reduce thoughtful novels to little else than plot, due to time constraints, but this mini-series is six hours long, which should be time enough to get the plot right at least. Nevertheless, unless you have read the book you won't understand much of what happens, or rather is alluded to in elliptical references to the back-story. On the other hand, if you have read the book, you'll be left wondering why the story was changed at all, let alone in the absurd ways it was. The changes to the story would be understandable if they added clarity to a reduced plot, or if they condensed characters for brevity. These changes add nothing: Saul Enderby as sexist jerk with female historian in burn-tape sequence. Ostrakova rescued in fantastic fashion from under the noses of creeps. Tension between Toby Esterhase and Peter Guillam. Drama between Smiley and his estranged wife Ann. Plus many others. These things aren't in the book and merely detract from an excellent original story. at the same time many things are left out that are crucial to the story and though alluded to make no sense. For instance the object dropped in the final scene is a lighter stolen by the hitherto unseen antagonist from Smiley in their first meeting twenty years earlier. This, and all that goes with it, are untouched story that clarifies a great deal of left-in nonsense. The DVD has no extra scenes or information or anything at all that might explain these lapses in judgment.