Red Joan (2018) User Reviews

based - very loosely - on a true story

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 30 August 2019]

Red Joan purports to tell the story of Melita Norwood, a Communist who handed British secrets over to the Russians.

Dame Judi Dench is the star, but she doesn't have a great deal to do since the story is told in flashback. The workhorse role is Sophie Cookson as the young Joan.

Joan is depicted as a smart woman working at an atomic research facility. She falls in love with a young man (Tom Galich). Though she continues to refuse his requests, she gradually gives in and hands the atom bomb plans over to the Russians.

As an elderly woman, she is arrested. It is then she tels her story to authorities and has a confrontation with her son.

In real life, the character was not seduced into Communism by love; she was a card-carrying Communist from the beginning and never had the boyfriend depicted. Nor was she smart enough to really know the ins and outs of the bomb. Here she is depicted as a talented scientist.

The Dench character insists that she was trying to help England, thinking that if both sides had the bomb, neither one would use it.

Melita Norwood stated: "I did what I did, not to make money, but to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had, at great cost, given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good education and a health service."

While she said she did not generally "agree with spying against one's country", she had hoped her actions would help "Russia to keep abreast of Britain, America and Germany".

Dench is always wonderful. All of the acting is on a very high level. The real story of Melita Norwood is interesting. Hopefully, the good thing about this type of film is it encourages people to read the real story.

Be warned: although "inspired by a true story" it is very far from the truth.

[postmortem-books · 5/10 · 2 May 2019]

Having researched the life of Melita Norwood - the real name of the fictional "Joan" played by Judi Dench in this film - it is obvious that this film has moved far from the truth of the deception that Joan carried out. Norwood came from a fervently communist/socialist household and NEVER went to Cambridge university. She studied Latin and logic at Southampton University for a year before dropping out. There was no love affair with a Russian sympathiser and she worked at British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association. She had already married a communist sympathiser before she was recruited by the NVKD because she was secretary to the research director at "Tube Alloys" a codename for atomic research facilities. She had ZERO understanding of the science and wouldn't have known one end of a pipette from another but she did have access to the research papers which she meticulously photographed and handed over to her Russian handler. History has deemed her deceptions as more damaging to British security than the infamous Cambridge Five. Thus the film plays fast and loose with the real history and rather cynically tries to entice the viewer into sympathising with "Red Joan" (who didn't have a barrister son in real life either). As a total fiction I would have given the film a guarded thumbs up as it is grips the imagination of the viewer but the "inspired by a true story" claim at the opening credits is very misleading. Joan/Melita was a traitor as much as Lord Haw Haw and she continued to support the Russian communist cause even when it was slaughtering millions of its own population.

interresting

[ops-52535 · 7/10 · 18 June 2019]

If you think you know all there is to know about the spy history since 1945, you will find this film pretty interesting and revealing. i have not heard about the ''granny spy'' until now and its a good melodramatic, historic flick, made for the newest generations.

judi dench does a remarkable appearance in this drama that jumps back and forth in history, the present is spun around police interrogation, and dialouges with her gobsmacked lawyer son, and the past where we follow the main from studies at cambridge into advancing into assistant at the nuclear research institute.

its has some romantic interludes here and there, the way they are made weakens the production, because its not profound enough . the score is classic style british drama series style of music, and gives a nice float to the motion.

its worth a glance thinks the grumpy old man if youre into the war and cold war history, and the keywords are like in many other features to forgive , bow and forget. recommended

Another "based on a true story" movie

[bastos · 6/10 · 25 November 2020]

This is what I call a false biopic. These are usually extremely well made movies with good production values, well acted and directed but they also play fast and loose with the actual facts as to make them more "interesting" to the audience. This genre is very popular, especially in the UK, as they are good award bait and popular with the audiences. These are usually never bad movies and I can't really give them a bad rating, but they also almost always leave me a bit flat and, to be honest, I am getting a bit tired of them. So, Red Joan falls in this category and I have nothing more to add about it, except that at least the creators, having changed almost everything regarding the true story, gave us the courtesy of changing the name of the titular character, a move which I think is at least a bit more honest.

Nearly very good 👍

[jasongkgreen · 6/10 · 20 April 2019]

Judi was very good of course, but doesn't feature hugely. Film was ok but felt like a missed opportunity. Could have been better. Meandered through an interesting story in a pedestrian manner. Last 10 mins it picked up. 6/10.

Underrated

[phil_johnson-28736 · 7/10 · 1 February 2020]

Critics blast this film as a missed opportunity. I heartily disagree, spy films do not all have to be fast paced intrigue. This film is a slow burn and thoughtful character study on the motivations of a woman in extraordinary positions.

Can you imagine making a spy for the Nazis sympathetic?

[random-70778 · 18 June 2019]

Sorry, but Melita Norwood (the person on whom this was based) was a despicable person who fervently and slavishly loved Stalinist Soviet Union long after we knew they were as murderous and oppressive as the Nazis had been.

She did not go to Cambridge, but dropped out of Southhampton. She spent most of her time compromising and destroying the lives of many of her co-workers. And as a direct result of her work the Russians were able to target annihilative fission weapons at the UK instead of basic atomic bombs.

Did History Bear Them Out?

[canniballife-78396 · 7/10 · 5 July 2021]

Playing the pleasant game of alternative history, we can make a couple of reasonable assumptions.

If Stalin had gotten The Bomb first, would he have used it to achieve global domination? Of course.

And Hitler? He would have leveled London without a second thought.

But the jarring plot point in this narrative is that Joan puts the US in the same category as those guys.

The Yanks took out Hiroshima, and Nagasaki - therefore they have no moral compass whatsoever and poor little Russia must have The Bomb to protect itself.

This is the basic problem with the script: when it comes to science Joan is a very smart cookie.

When it comes to other things - politics, people, sex - she doesn't really seem to know her ass from a hole in the ground.

In her concluding speech she makes the argument that she was right - 50 years of peace proving her decisions - but conveniently fails to mention the epically expensive arms race that resulted.

This is a well-done movie, and certainly worth the time, but the main character - as she's written - is not very convincing and it's reasonable to react to her with a strong sense of impatience.

Best Of British

[Alanjackd · 8/10 · 22 April 2019]

With all the superhero big budget claptrap around , it's good to see a proper well made British movie.

Everything works perfect here. From the script to the direction including costume and design it all becomes jigsaw pieces of a fantastic tale.

For me , each and everyone gives a marvellous performance to make this an early contender for hit of the year. Of course it won't win anything come award time but neither did The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie movie....and this is just as good. Just a brilliant story...with a dollop of history thrown in.

The young Judi Dench gives a brilliant performance .

Forget all the blockbusters and settle down for this...I gave 8 because I would have liked an extra 20 minutes or so to delve into KGB or MI5...but alas no, FANTASTIC

Interesting but never really changes gear

[muamba_eats_toast · 6/10 · 25 April 2019]

The film as mentioned was extremely interesting but failed to ever really leave 2nd gear the performances was fine and I wasn't bored but it just felt like it could have had another level to it and could really have exploded into action towards the end but continued to plod on at a mediocre pace. Reasonable but nothing special.

Great Acting Poor Script

[martimusross · 4/10 · 5 September 2019]

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

• 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

Flashback Driven

[Intermissionman_ · 8/10 · 13 May 2019]

Dame Judi Dench stars as Joan Stanley who is exposed as a KGB Russian Spy long after retirement. The Film opens when she is arrested at her home then taken for interrogation. While being interrogated, Joan Flashes back to the past and that is what drives the Film. Sophie Cookson plays Joan during her early years as a Physics student at Cambridge University and it is here where she is recruited by the KGB and a Soviet supported politically radical friend Leo played by Tom Hughes. Judy Dench is actually only in a handful of the scenes but really delivers at key moments in the Movie and so do her fellow Cast Mates. As the Legal Battle ensues, the Flash backs intensify. Based loosely on a True Story I felt the Storyline was very believable and Builds and Finishes Strong. Well done Production. Top Notch Actors

Slumbering premise keeps promissing story average

[ingmarbeldman-753-927212 · 7/10 · 8 June 2019]

This could have easily be a big + spy story. One of those stories that survive the times because the writers dig behind the veils of historic facts, and make essential values of human existance see the light of day. That value here is that one human can break through the simplicfied truths of time-bound consciousness, the illusions of wrong and right, dares to think his own moral mind and make a decision that serves humanity on a deeper level of evolution. It shows as a premise that is strongly tied to the story but not convincingly develloped.

What is left is a skilled and entertaining movie, not a timeless one.

Red Joan

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 7 April 2021]

Red Joan is a cosy bland film inspired by the true story of granny spy Melita Norwood. She was unmasked as a KGB agent late in her life.

Judi Dench plays the elderly Joan Stanley who is taken in for questioning by the police as a suspected Soviet spy.

Her son Nick (Ben Miles) is a barrister who helps her as she is questioned. Nick learns that his mother was a scientist who worked in the laboratory that developed the atom bomb.

The flashbacks scenes had young Joan (Sophie Cookson) as an idealist communist sympathiser. She is fascinated by Leo (Tom Hughes) and his cousin Sonya who are supporters of the Russian revolution.

Joan gets a job within the Tube Alloys project. The government project that secretly developed the atomic bomb.

After the bombing of Hiroshima. Joan finds herself passing secrets so the Soviets also have parity in the nuclear arms race.

Joan also falls in love with her boss, Professor Max Davis (Stephen Campbell Moore) who is later suspected of possible espionage.

This is a plodding, sludgy film with an interminable romance subplot. This is really a television film.

Just because it is based on true facts does not meant it will be an interesting movie. This does not hold a candle to films/tv shows about the Cambridge Spies; Philby, Burgess, Blunt, Maclean.

There are some good performances but it is a movie with no thrills.

I also did not buy the fact that Russia would not had been able to have developed the atomic bomb without Joan's help. After the war, Russian bought over their own share of Nazi scientists who had worked in developing the bomb.

"I did what I did, not to make money, but to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had, at great cost, given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford."

[TxMike · 27 March 2020]

My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library.

The novel and this movie called "Red Joan" are very loosely based, or inspired by, the real story of Melita Norwood who was raised in England as a Russian sympathizer by her dad. The years have been changed, the names changed, and the main character has become a Theoretical Physicist instead of a secretary. So if one judges the movie strictly on historical accuracy, it gets very poor marks.

However as a fictional war-era espionage drama it works very well. The main character features Judi Dench as elderly Joan who was arrested and questioned in her late 80s, not many years before she died. But most of the interesting stuff occurs in the 1930s and 1940s as several countries worked independently to manufacture an atomic bomb.

The real featured role belongs to 20-something Sophie Cookson in the role of the young Joan and she performs quite admirably. Most of the movie is told in flashback.

We enjoyed the movie and in spite of its mostly fictional story it illustrates the political and wartime climate of those times.

I was fighting for the living

[juneebuggy · 7/10 · 1 February 2020]

A bit slow moving but worth the effort for an intriguing true story and brilliant performance - as you'd expect- from Dame Judi Dench. Story follows Joan Stanley, a widow living out a quiet retirement in the suburbs of England who is suddenly placed under arrest by the British Secret Service It seems Joan has been concealing a past double life as a soviet spy. The charges stem from the 1930's and through many flashbacks we see how she gets involved with providing classified scientific information - including details on the building of the atomic bomb - to the Soviet government.

I enjoyed the Judi Dench modern parts the most here, seeing an old lady get arrested in her front garden, the shock to her son and neighbors. The flashback sections to the 30's and 40's and the actress attached to them were a bit weak and melodramatic, still interesting though and I ultimately I sympathised with why she did what she did.

Good Drama, Bad History

[gcwnfp · 6/10 · 3 January 2022]

The acting, costumes, and sets for this period piece are all excellent and engaging. The depiction of political indoctrination and group dynamics was accurate. When the reason for disclosure of nuclear secrets is revealed, I docked 2 stars. While I'm sure that the rationale of the traitors was historically accurate, the writers obviously did not bother to hire a sufficiently competent military or intelligence advisor. Had they done this, they would have at least provided the rebuttal to scientists who hastened Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) via Soviet nukes. They wrongly presumed that the United States would ever use a nuclear first strike in an act of aggression, rather than saving 5 million lives, as they did for Japan and America, when choosing to drop the bomb in WW2. The years after Hiroshima until the Soviets obtained the nuke proved that point.

The next wrong presumption is that Soviet nuclear power decreased war casualties by preventing another World War through MAD. That presumes that the world had conditions for another World War, which were somehow abated by MAD. In truth, Soviet acquisition of nuclear missiles allowed them to instigate proxy wars along with China across Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, which slaughtered millions of people, and brought tyranny to millions more. Without the deterrence of US nuclear superiority, Europe, Asian allies, and America had to confront the communist proxy wars with containment and spheres of influence, unable to assist the rest of Asia with prosperity and peace like Japan and S. Korea.

So they can carry the false narrative that Soviet nukes were beneficial to humanity, as they did in this movie. But those millions of families who still suffer from the brutality of Pol Pot, Mao Zedong et. Al., are not so easy to kick to the curb for those of us who know history. When the scriptwriters presented the question of scientists (who ostensibly care more for humanity than for nationality), versus the politicians and military officers (who ostensibly care more about power and nationality than humanity), they deliberately took the side of the "humanistic" scientists. Which is precisely an inversion of reality. History proved those "humanistic" scientists wrong about MAD leading to peace. And if they weren't so arrogant, they would've left that determination to the military officers and political science experts who accurately predicted the dangers of communist nuclear armament. If the scriptwriters had conveyed this message, the movie would deserve 8 stars.

Flat and fictitious-

[tm-sheehan · 6/10 · 11 June 2019]

Red Joan My Review- 6:10

I think Trevor Nunn should stick to being an English theatre director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.

Alas these qualifications don't automatically transfer well to Cinema direction and in my opinion this is a very average film .

It has a great talented cast including Judi Dench , who as usual gives stature to any movie and a good performance as the aged Joan Stanley who is accused of espionage and giving secret information to Russia that would assist them in being able to process their own Atomic bomb.

Judi Dench' role is important in this story but not the major role ,that is played by Sophie Cookson as young Joan in flashbacks of how this fanciful tale , very loosely based on the true story of Melita Sirnis or Melita Norwood as she was known as when she was unmasked as a spy in 1999.

I've posted a little of the real life story of Melita or Red Joan as I suspected it would have made a much better film .

Perhaps the novel it's based by Jennie Rooney is better but the screenplay written by Lindsay Shapiro didn't impress me at all.

The character Red Joan is based on was a Communist , never migrated to Australia and her stated reasons for her betrayal were entirely different to the films story, she thought Communism was the preferred ideal.

As the information below states this film is another example of taking a story and altering the true facts and padding it with unnecessary fiction and cliches like the obligatory Gay blackmail exposure theme to enable Joan and her husbands escape to Australia.

Like most movies today the credits state that it's based on a true story in this case it just didn't ring true to me and I think if it had had better direction (example Morten Tildum The Imitation Game) and a better believable script eg( Graham Moore & Andrew Hodges Imitation Game) it may have worked.

...................................................................................................

From 1932, Sirnis worked as a secretary with the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association. Towards the end of 1935, she married Hilary Nussbaum, who was of Russian descent (he later changed his name to Norwood), a chemistry teacher, teachers' trades union official, and lifelong communist. After the Independent Labour Party (ILP), of which she had become a member earlier in the decade, splintered in 1936, Melita Norwood joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). The UK authorities were not aware of her party affiliation until very much later. The previous year, she was recommended to the NKVD (forerunner of the KGB) by Andrew Rothstein, a leading member of the CPGB, and became a full agent in 1937. In the same year, Norwood and her husband purchased a semi-detached house in the south London suburb of Bexleyheath, where they led an apparently unremarkable life together, and where she would live until she was 90.

A committed communist, Norwood said she had gained no material profit from her actions. In a statement Norwood read at the time of her exposure, she said: "I did what I did, not to make money, but to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had, at great cost, given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good education and a health service." While she said she did not generally "agree with spying against one's country", she had hoped her actions would help "Russia to keep abreast of Britain, America and Germany".

Too much "Hollywood", story didn't seem grounded in reality

[jsmiemans · 6/10 · 22 June 2019]

Now, I get that modern audiences tend to want some extra flavor added to their historical drama nowadays (at least, that's what Hollywood keeps telling us), so I was expecting they'd sprinkle on some romantic subplot, change the characters around to suit modern identity/gender politics, and changed the narrative a bit. But in doing so, this film seems to have gotten away from its source-material to such an extent, that none of it felt like a real story anymore. At no point did I get that "wow, this really happened" feeling, which is supposed to be the main motivation driving such films. The plot just isn't interesting enough to stand on its own without any historical context, yet it's far too altered to feel like it connect to its own, real life history.

One of my main gripes was with the main protagonist, who's younger version of herself in particular (played by Sophie Cockson), felt like a completely two-dimensional and shallow character. -- Young, beautiful girl who happens to be a genius-level nuclear physicist (but looks like a supermodel, of course) who, despite her supposed intelligence, at the same time is motivated by completely naive and immature idealism. The fact that the movie tries so hard to endear you to this person who, by any measure, was at her core a despicable traitor not only to her own country but also everyone else around her, made it a hard one to watch for me. Instead of this run-of-the-mill Mary Sue character that feels so completel played out in modern cinema, I would've loved to've seen a REAL actress actually bring something to the role. The film failed in communicating to the audience WHY she did what she did, instead it hinged the whole plot line on the dumbed down notion of "she's in love with a handsome communist". Would not recommend this one. The film feels labored and tedious, too much disingenuous, romantic sentimentality. Overall, a bore to watch.

7/10 for the cinematography and the production design 4/10 for the story and characters

Red Joan Rocks: What movie did these critics see?

[destino1978 · 10/10 · 4 May 2019]

Terrific. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and emotional at the end. What more do you want? I loved the pacing. This is a young woman's film and Judy Dench was the translator and narrator. Throughout I asked myself, what would I do if I were in her shoes? I was impressed with the story and immersed inside it. The seriousness of what she did was dramatic. My glass was full with the intensity of it all. Excellent film.

A thoughtful and interesting spy movie inspired by True Events

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 12 September 2022]

A thought provoking , agreeable story , well paced and competently acted. Enjoyable film with intrigue , suspense and historical events . Red Joan (2018) boasts a good cast , such as Sophie Cookson, Stephen Campbell Moore, Tom Hughes , Ben Miles and Judi Dench, all of them giving stunning interpretations. Based - very loosely - on a true story , it starts in a picturesque village in England , where Joan Stanley lives in contented and peaceful retirement. Then English-born Joan Stanley (Dame Judi Dench) is detained and interrogated by MI5 , accusing her to be one of the most influential spies in living history . Later on , a series of flashbacks telling past events , in which a young Joan (Sophie Cookson) gets recruited by the K. G. B in the mid 1930s. She successfully transfers secrets to Soviet Russia, and remains undetected as a spy for over a half a century . For Joan - she is How far would you go to protect everything you love?. To Change the World, She Betrayed Her Country.

Based on Incredible true events in which various countries during WWII compete in the nuclear career , as Germany , Russia and US were developing an atomic bomb ; along the way , British agents and undercover Soviet spies enter the picture, and while our starring gets a job at a nuclear investigation project ,which enables them to keep up with the west in the development of atomic weapons , but strange behaviours raise suspicions among colleagues . As the Manhattan Project, in Los Alamos , as mentioned in this film , was an American project of research and development during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons and the famous ¨Fat Man and Little Boy¨ . The picture has substance and intellect enough , containing suspense , intrigue , twists and turns . Although "inspired by a true story" about a spy who has been hiding an incredible past , it is very far from the truth . There are usually extremely well made movies with adequate period piece , fine production values , nicely acted , brilliant cinematography (here by cameraman Zac Nicholson) , evocative score (by George Fenton) and shot but they also play fast and loose with the actual facts as to make them more commercial to the audience . This genre is very popular , especially in the United Kingdom , as they are good award bait and popular with the spectators . The film is pretty well and as an espionage drama it works frankly nice . The tale was really interesting and intriguing , and as far as I'm concerned well filmed , though packs some failures , flaws and tiring , at times . It's a compelling flick , motivating and engaging , however partially unfaithful it is to the events that inspired it . Loosely based on the real-life case of Civil Servant Melita Norwood (1912-2005) , who successfully passed classified information about the British Atomic program to the Russians in the 1940s and 50s . In fact , she was actually imprisoned and Norwood stated the following one : "I did what I did, not to make money, but to help prevent the defeat of a system which had at great cost given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good education, and a health service" . The main characters feature Sophie Cookson as a Communist Party sympathizer, becomes employed as a British government civil servant, and Judi Dench who excels in her role as the elderly retired woman whose tranquil existence is shattered as she's shockingly arrested by MI5 , resulting to be one of the most important spies in living history.

This morally empathetic motion picture was well directed by Trevor Nunn . His film debut was Lady Jane (186) ,this was first theatrical film for director Trevor in eleven years , the last had been Hedda in 1975 and the third and final was Twelfth Night or What You Will ; all three pictures are costume period films. Furthermore , he has directed TV films , such as : The Merchant of Venice , Oklahoma! , The three sisters , The Great Hamlets , American Playhouse, Theatre Night , among others. Rating : 6/10 . Acceptable and passable.

side note to history

[ferguson-6 · 5/10 · 19 April 2019]

Greetings again from the darkness. Sir Trevor Nunn is a Tony Award winner best known for his stage productions, and for being director of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1968 through 1986. The film is "inspired by a true story", and Lindsay Shapero has adapted Jennie Rooney's 2013 novel, which was a blend of history and fiction taken from the life of Melita Norwood ... the longest serving British KGB spy.

Dame Judi Dench plays Joan Stanley (the movie version of the aforementioned Ms. Norwood) whom we first meet as she is being arrested for treason by MI5 agents in May 2000. Most of the film consists of Joan being interrogated while having flashbacks to her earlier life, beginning in 1938 at Cambridge University. She was a hard-working nose-to-the grindstone Physics student who is drawn in to the fascinating world of Sonja (Tereza Srbova) and her brother Leo (Tom Hughes), who are supporters of the Soviet party. In the flashback scenes, young Joan is played by Sophie Cookson (who reminds of a young Faye Dunaway).

The film spends most of its time in flashback mode, and Ms. Cookson excels as the idealistic Joan first in her scenes with Sonja and Leo, and later with Stephen Campbell Moore who plays Professor Max Davies. Joan is recruited to work in the lab with Davies, as the secretly work to create the Atom bomb. It's Sonja and Leo who coerce Joan into passing along secret documents that allow Stalin's Russia to keep pace on bomb development. She easily flies under the radar since, as Sonja tells her, "Nobody would suspect us. We are women."

From a historical perspective, the film kind of falls flat. It also doesn't qualify as a British spy thriller since there are really no thrills to be found. "The Americans" TV show was infinitely better at the spy genre than this one; however, if the film works on any level, it's as moral debate fodder. Joan clearly has her reasons for doing what she thought was right ... leveling the playing field between super powers, so that none had an advantage. The question is, what is right and who is to decide? During this time, alliances were quite fluid between Russia, Britain and the United States, and she believed her actions saved lives.

Dame Judi is really not on screen much, and when she is, there's little for her to do except play innocent and dream of years gone by. She was labeled "Granny spy", and though her story is interesting, and does provide yet another aspect from WWII, the film itself never really grabs us as viewers. The early periods are well filmed with beautiful costumes and sets, but we are never as dumbstruck as Joan's son (Ben Miles) when he admits he thought his mum was merely an over-educated librarian. As a character study, there's something here ... but as entertainment, it's a bit lacking.

Red Joan - a work of romantic fiction

[rblincowe3 · 8/10 · 21 May 2019]

I went to see this film without any fore knowledge of the content, only the general awareness that Judi Dench plays a senior female Russian spy, Joan Smith, hence the film's title. This film turned out to be a story told in flashbacks as Joan now a senior citizen is arrested for treason. Her spying activities start after we see Joan as a young Cambridge physics student flirting with revolutionary socialism and with a young Russian student, Leo, a cousin of her friend Sonya. The idealism of youth and the enduring friendships of university life bind the plot together as Joan becomes embroiled in spying for Leo as she becomes smitten by him, and starts working at a secret government research centre with her physics degree. A thoughtful story that takes on the feel of a work of romantic fiction as the relationship between Leo and Joan evolves, sometimes at a distance, revealing the extent of the spying and the consequences of secrets revealed. A thought provoking and interesting film that is intelligent in its approach. Perhaps calling it 'inspired by a true story' that of Melita Norwood is too far fetched, as that real life Granny Spy never went to Cambridge University, never had a barrister son, never studied physics and had no doubts about her socialist ideals as both her parents were Communists. This is different more nuanced story and altogether better for it from a storyline perspective. Judi Dench is as wonderful as ever and Sophie Cookson as the young Joan is mesmerising. Leo as played by Tom Hughes adds mystery as the idealist young male love interest, to this fascinating and intelligent tale.

This is not a documentary but it is worth watching

[catnapbc · 7/10 · 2 March 2024]

With lots of solid acting and believable characters, this 'loosely' based on adaptation of the book is still better than lots of other spy stories from this period. What makes it unique is that the central (and real person it's based on) is female and that she was only exposed late in life. Another successful rendition of a period piece which the British do so well for the most part. The performances are largely spot on, apart from a few roles that didn't ring true and felt 'thin', like the 'Canadians' (I am one). But there's enough intrigue and tension and historical truths that it keeps your attention throughout. The pace is just right and although a few minor scenarios were not that interesting or even necessary to the story, the overall writing and dialogue felt very authentic. Beautiful cinematography and thankfully the background music stayed subtle (unlike most shows these days), and the period details also caught the mood and look of the times depicted. Not the best spy movie ever made but one of the better ones.

Red Moan when it could have been so much more.

[CuriousCase007 · 3/10 · 28 October 2018]

While watching the film, my feelings toward it was like a pendulum, swinging from 'This is a well crafted film' to 'this is nothing more than left wing propaganda'. My research after the film allowed me to settle for the latter.

I'll start with the positives. For most part, you can't fault the performances, especially from our two Joans - Cookson is wonderful and Dench reliably delivers. It was evocative of the planned back story for her M in Skyfall before it was shelved in favour of the final product, but I digress.

Red Joan is structurally sound. The narrative evolves at a beautiful pace and never did it lag. I believed the character and story development (except perhaps the actions of one male character toward the end). The technical aspects were beautiful too - the cinematography, the music and art direction all very palatable. Which is why it's so disappointing that the politics bogs this down to glossy revisionist propaganda.

The sell is that the Cold War hinged on this one woman's decision to pass atomic research over to the Russians in the hopes it will deter the superpowers from ever claiming lives, and older Joan claims that WWIII was averted because of her actions. A bit of a stretch, but when the film opens with 'inspired by a true story', you believe the basic plot points are what you get. The closing moments in the film highlight that Joan didn't exist, and in fact it was a Melita Norwood who passed such research to the Russians. She was a staunch communist who wholeheartedly believed in the ideology that claimed millions more lives than Hitler. In turn, the film amps up the dissonance Joan has between East vs West, which creates a much more sympathetic character, but glosses over the genocidal regime in Russia. Instead, the film focuses on an anti-US rhetoric and glamourises left wing ideology. Given how Joan takes refuge in Australia, one can interpret her actions are naive mistakes from a girl who was swept away by love, which would be a much easier pill to swallow. However, given the film ends on the brief information surrounding Melita's story, it strongly suggests a desire to sensationalise Melita's life and allegiance to Moscow, which is far from heroic and needn't be celebrated. Explored, perhaps from a different point of view, but certainly not honoured.