(no subject)

[telophase]

We saw Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy this weekend. While we enjoyed it, both of us were still puzzling out exactly what was going on afterwards, and judging by the buzz of the people in the hallway afterwards as we left, we weren't the only ones. Seems there was a motivation missing for the person who turned out to be the mole, unless it was subtle enough that we missed it.

Am considering reading the novel. I understand there were a few elements changed, but not a significant amount.

Comments

[lady_ganesh]

I loved the book, FWIW.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

The motivation is in the novel, and it didn't make it into the movie. The majority changes were mainly that scenes and characters were compressed. The major change is Peter's sexuality. He's a bit of a womanizer in the books.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Good, then. :) I just may give it a go.

Without having read the book yet, I think Peter's sexuality worked really well in the context of the movie, and was a nice counterpoint to the (rot13) zbyr'f (pna'g erzrzore uvf anzr!) sevraqfuvc/uvagrq eryngvbafuvc jvgu Cevqrnhk.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

which was in fact suggested in the book, as I remember. (I'm rereading it now.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

In that case, it sounds like one of the rare changes from a book to a movie that both diversifies and deepens!

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I watched the film before reading the book, and it didn't throw me--mostly because motivation doesn't matter; it's not a story about what drives a person to change political allegiances, it's about spycraft, and how to hunt down the double agent once he's known to exist. (The book helped to give a little more depth to the "as much an aesthetic choice as a moral one" line, though.) It didn't hurt that I was already familiar with the Cambridge Five, so the mundane "always had political leanings towards Communism and eventually became a Soviet spy" seemed like a perfectly adequate explanation in itself, and I wasn't expecting anything else, no matter who it turned out to be.

[mothoc.livejournal.com]

After I watched the movie, I went home and read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker,_Tailor,_Soldier,_Spy trying to figure out what the hell I just watched. It was a well-acted movie. I'm glad I saw it. But at the end, I was like, "wait, what? What happened? Huh?"

[telophase.livejournal.com]

They really nailed that dreary, damp, depressing institutional atmosphere of the buildings and the bureaucracy. I remember that from going to school in Wales in the early '90s (fifteen years behind London, of course!).

I haven't resorted to Wikipedia yet as I'll probably read the book, but I'm with you on that!