224. Red Joan; movie review

RED JOAN
Cert 12A
99 mins

BBFC advice: Contains modetate ex, suicide references

What a crunching disappointment.
I was aware of the story of Melita Norwood, the so-called granny spy, who was thought to be the KGB's most important British agent.
Well, despite claiming it is based on that true story, Red Joan has drifted off into the cliche-packed realm of romance.
Curiously, it makes its central character to be less interested in Soviet politics than saving the world. In reality, Norwood was brought up into a family of Communists and believed passionately in the cause.
Red Joan begins with elderly Joan Stanley (Judi Dench) being arrested by police, as Norwood was in real life, and being accused of betraying her country decades previously.
As she is being interviewed by officers, her story plays out in flashbacks to the 1930s and 1940s when she was a student and young researcher.

Sophie Cookson plays Joan in her youth as an initially naive physicist who befriends Europeans with left-leaning views.
Indeed, she falls in love with one (Tom Hughes) who cultivates her interest in politics while luring her to his bed.
But she is never a political animal, instead seeing herself as the saviour of the world.
It is perplexing why the film's makers didn't make a straightforward link to the Cambridge spy ring which Norwood would certainly have known and even the fictitious Joan would have.
I can only imagine former KGB officers having a right good giggle if they have the misfortune to trip over Trevor Nunn's movie.
It implies a lack of sophistication from their organisation which is far from the truth.
And it doesn't draw enough on the tension which would have been an everyday part of the lives of those passed on secrets.
The only realistic element was Dench's when Joan finally has to confront her past and the astonishment of her son (Ben Miles).
Otherwise, it falls well short of expectation.

Reasons to watch: Fine central performances
Reasons to avoid: Too much cliched melodrama not enough of the true story in which it is supposedly based

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: Yes
Overall rating: 5/10

Did you know? Melita Norwood wasn't a physicist nor did she go to Cambridge University - she was a drop out from Southampton University, where she only studied Latin and Logic for a year.

The final word. Producer David Parfitt: "It’s a story about a moral dilemma. It’s a character-led piece. It’s a female-led piece. It’s about how an incredibly smart woman managed to operate in a very particular way in a man’s world.”

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