Film Review - Red Joan (12A)

My little comrade.

An unlikely spy is by definition an ideal one. Red Joan is adapted from the novel by Jennie Rooney, but inspired by the real-life case of Melita Norwood, a suburban great-grandmother apprehended in her late 80's for espionage carried out half a century earlier. The factual framework is used loosely, however, to place the movie's protagonist in a unique moral dilemma. It's not a movie that thrills, necessarily, nor is it dramatically perfect - but it does throw up some fascinating ideas.

Judi Dench plays the older version of Joan, a respectable widow whose suburban life is abruptly interrupted when MI6 come knocking on her door. Her lawyer son (Ben Miles) assumes some ridiculous misunderstanding has taken place, until the tide of evidence against her turns into a flood. In her pre-WW2 Cambridge days Joan (Sophie Cookson looking the classic English rose) was befriended - arguably groomed - by exotic fellow-student Sonya and her political agitator cousin Leo (Tom Hughes). Attracted more by Leo himself than his politics, she was drawn into Communist circles, those associations sticking to her when her theoretical physics degree led her into top secret governmental work. The choices she made in a world that tended to allow women very few form the core of the drama.

It's an intriguing premise from the start, one supremely suited to master of subtext Dame Judi - all furtive guilt under the grandmotherly exterior. Some viewers will be frustrated then that she's only used in framing scenes, the story largely carried - as the character's backstory unfolds - by Cookson. The younger actress does a sterling job, however, portraying Joan's passage from naivety to a worldliness that goes far beyond the social or sexual. She visibly changes from a rather cowed girl at the start to the passionate and intelligent young woman capable of making truly drastic choices, for better or worse. There's nice support too from the key influences in Joan's life, including Hughes (Prince Albert in royal TV drama Victoria) and Stephen Campbell Moore as her tweedy mentor in the Ministry of Defence.

What proves less satisfying is a screenplay that occasionally feels written by numbers, and that fails, in one crucial stretch of the film, to capitalise on the dramatic set-up. Seriously - when you arrive at the key thriller element of the story, let it play out properly, don't fudge it with a montage. Also if you're lucky enough to have Judi Dench as the older version of your heroine, give her dialogue a bit of proper nuance, reflecting all that ambiguity in her actions as a younger woman. Morally complex material shouldn't be painted in broad strokes as the film reaches its end. There's real meaty drama to be explored here, and it's a shame the script doesn't make the most of it.

Ultimately the extent to which you enjoy Red Joan will hinge on whether you're drawn in by the moral tangle itself and how interested you are in Joan's true motivations. In one sense this is a story about the clarity of hindsight, and how the implications of certain momentous decisions may only become apparent decades after the fact. It also deals (using the same historical licence as the novel) with one young woman's conflict in a surprising confluence of historical and personal circumstance. This isn't quite the riveting stuff it should be - but it throws out some tricky questions that stick with you beyond the end credits.

Gut Reaction: Took a while to get there, but ultimately absorbed by the central conundrum, resulting in a major post-movie discussion about fate and responsibility.

Memorable Moment: The one that makes up Joan's mind.

Ed's Verdict: 6/10. Neither the writing nor Trevor Nunn's direction shine the way they should, but the political ideas and two fine performances as Joan make this worth your time.