Red Joan
I enjoyed the movie but it just failed to rise above its subject matter. The movie was torn between two conflicting issues that it failed to resolve
Lastly to just state this was a reflection of a true story is not sufficient to justify this rather small story of a traitor that wasn't caught until her eighties. If it had been me I would have prosecuted her and left her to rot in jail as the traitor she was and remind the viewer of the countless lives lost during the Cold War at the hands of other traitors namely Burgess and MacLaine
I enjoyed the movie but it just failed to rise above its subject matter. The movie was torn between two conflicting issues that it failed to resolve
- firstly Joan was a traitor, it cannot be for any individual to decide what a foreign country/enemy should know or not know. The movie suggests that 50 years of peace justifies her decision but this is a leap too far. Hiroshima is an example where using the bomb cost lives but saved millions of others in conventional war.
- Secondly Joan was groomed both intellectually, romantically and sexually. This was tawdry manipulation from the start and she was a naive idiot. This was revealed very early on in the movie, and yet this silly romantic thread continued.
Lastly to just state this was a reflection of a true story is not sufficient to justify this rather small story of a traitor that wasn't caught until her eighties. If it had been me I would have prosecuted her and left her to rot in jail as the traitor she was and remind the viewer of the countless lives lost during the Cold War at the hands of other traitors namely Burgess and MacLaine