RED JOAN
***
Director: Trevor Nunn
Screenwriter: Lindsay Shapero
Principal cast:
Judi Dench
Sophie Cookson
Stephen Campbell Moore
Tom Hughes
Tereza Srbova
Ben Miles
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 101 mins.
Australian release date: 6 June 2019
Previewed at: Palace Central, Sydney, on 16 May 2019.
The novel Red Joan by Jennie Rooney, which unveiled the story of Melita Norwood, an English spy who delivered classified information about Britain’s atomic program to the USSR in the ‘40s and ‘50s, has now been adapted for the screen by Lindsay Shapero. Directed by Trevor Nunn, who’s maintained the book’s title, Red Joan delves into the situation of its protagonist on a deeply personal level, reasoning that her decision to pass secrets on was not an act of treason so much as an act of compassion. This was due to the horrifying consequences of the bombing of Hiroshima and how this act seeped into the conscience of a woman who felt complicit in the deaths of innocent civilians. She reasoned that if all the world powers had ‘the bomb’, they would all be less inclined to use it, a doctrine that later became known by the acronym MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction.
In the film version, Norwood becomes Joan Stanley (played by Sophie Cookson in her younger years, Judi Dench as a mature woman). Red Joan uses a series of flashbacks to illustrate the extraordinary life of a woman who was very much part of a man’s world, being an expert in her field of science in the 1930s. It opens in May 2000 with a domestic scene in a village terrace cottage where an elderly, retired Joan answers a knock at her door, only to be confronted by officers from MI5 who arrest her for 27 breaches of the Official Secrets Act. Joan’s husband has pre-deceased her and the only remaining member of her family is her son Nick (Ben Miles) who, unaware of his mother’s past, is understandably angered by what he regards as false charges against her. When Joan is questioned, we cut to 1938 where we see that young Joan has fallen in with a group of Communists at Cambridge. Introduced to them by an outgoing acquaintance named Sonya (Tereza Srbova), she soon becomes enamoured with one of the members, Leo Galich (Tom Hughes), a budding apparatchik who sets her on her political path. As an expert in her field of science, Joan also establishes a relationship with a renowned chemistry professor, Max Davis (Stephen Campbell Moore), and is selected to work with him on a visit to a top-secret nuclear facility in Canada, where she learns the terrible truth about the development of the atomic bomb.
Joan’s act was viewed as treachery at the highest level, all the more so because it wasn’t detected until many years after she had stopped passing on secrets. Both Dench and Cookson deliver strong, measured performances, underplaying the drama of the situation in which their character finds herself, to great effect. Under the circumstances, it would have been tempting to heighten Joan’s emotions but she is played as a rational, thoughtful woman who has considered the implications of her treachery. As older Joan tries to explain to her MI5 interrogators, “The world was so different then. You’ve no idea.” Indeed, Dench plays her as positively bewildered by the charges brought against her. The subsequent unravelling of the backstory provides insight into the personal sacrifices made by someone who could foresee an impending disaster and attempted to maintain peace by looking at the greater good, beyond that which was merely beneficial for her government. The supporting cast is uniformly good, too, as is George Fenton’s terrific score.
At the end of the day though, Red Joan is a fairly straight-forward British spy thriller, albeit one that shows a different, more human side to the world of espionage than the familiar cloak and dagger one we’re used to. It is an interesting yarn but it won’t be joining the pantheon of great British spy whodunnits. Despite its title, this film is more about the why than the who.
Screenwriter: Lindsay Shapero
Principal cast:
Judi Dench
Sophie Cookson
Stephen Campbell Moore
Tom Hughes
Tereza Srbova
Ben Miles
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 101 mins.
Australian release date: 6 June 2019
Previewed at: Palace Central, Sydney, on 16 May 2019.
The novel Red Joan by Jennie Rooney, which unveiled the story of Melita Norwood, an English spy who delivered classified information about Britain’s atomic program to the USSR in the ‘40s and ‘50s, has now been adapted for the screen by Lindsay Shapero. Directed by Trevor Nunn, who’s maintained the book’s title, Red Joan delves into the situation of its protagonist on a deeply personal level, reasoning that her decision to pass secrets on was not an act of treason so much as an act of compassion. This was due to the horrifying consequences of the bombing of Hiroshima and how this act seeped into the conscience of a woman who felt complicit in the deaths of innocent civilians. She reasoned that if all the world powers had ‘the bomb’, they would all be less inclined to use it, a doctrine that later became known by the acronym MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction.
In the film version, Norwood becomes Joan Stanley (played by Sophie Cookson in her younger years, Judi Dench as a mature woman). Red Joan uses a series of flashbacks to illustrate the extraordinary life of a woman who was very much part of a man’s world, being an expert in her field of science in the 1930s. It opens in May 2000 with a domestic scene in a village terrace cottage where an elderly, retired Joan answers a knock at her door, only to be confronted by officers from MI5 who arrest her for 27 breaches of the Official Secrets Act. Joan’s husband has pre-deceased her and the only remaining member of her family is her son Nick (Ben Miles) who, unaware of his mother’s past, is understandably angered by what he regards as false charges against her. When Joan is questioned, we cut to 1938 where we see that young Joan has fallen in with a group of Communists at Cambridge. Introduced to them by an outgoing acquaintance named Sonya (Tereza Srbova), she soon becomes enamoured with one of the members, Leo Galich (Tom Hughes), a budding apparatchik who sets her on her political path. As an expert in her field of science, Joan also establishes a relationship with a renowned chemistry professor, Max Davis (Stephen Campbell Moore), and is selected to work with him on a visit to a top-secret nuclear facility in Canada, where she learns the terrible truth about the development of the atomic bomb.
Joan’s act was viewed as treachery at the highest level, all the more so because it wasn’t detected until many years after she had stopped passing on secrets. Both Dench and Cookson deliver strong, measured performances, underplaying the drama of the situation in which their character finds herself, to great effect. Under the circumstances, it would have been tempting to heighten Joan’s emotions but she is played as a rational, thoughtful woman who has considered the implications of her treachery. As older Joan tries to explain to her MI5 interrogators, “The world was so different then. You’ve no idea.” Indeed, Dench plays her as positively bewildered by the charges brought against her. The subsequent unravelling of the backstory provides insight into the personal sacrifices made by someone who could foresee an impending disaster and attempted to maintain peace by looking at the greater good, beyond that which was merely beneficial for her government. The supporting cast is uniformly good, too, as is George Fenton’s terrific score.
At the end of the day though, Red Joan is a fairly straight-forward British spy thriller, albeit one that shows a different, more human side to the world of espionage than the familiar cloak and dagger one we’re used to. It is an interesting yarn but it won’t be joining the pantheon of great British spy whodunnits. Despite its title, this film is more about the why than the who.