I didn’t like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. I couldn’t make head or tail of what was going on for almost all the time, and it didn’t add up by the end. It took wikipedia for me to sort it out.
It’s true that it’s beautifully filmed and cinema insiders are loving it for its homages to Hitchcock etc. It’s true that Gary Oldman has a smile like the Mona Lisa, hovering in between emotional states so as to seem almost from another world. It’s watchable.
But what is a thriller if it fails to tell the story? And it’s not just that it’s demanding. I like demanding. I felt it was crudely obfuscatory. That’s not a playful trick, a brilliant reversal, an artful unfolding. It’s cheap narration.