La Vie aux aguets

I thought the first half or so was marvelous. I felt the ending was a let down and flat somehow. There felt like so much build up for the present day resolution and then it went out with a whimper. Still good overall. (One thing that may have thrown me is that i thought I was watching a movie. Prime then said episode 1 of season 1 so I thought it was going to be more lengthy.)

Hayley Atwell made this for me - she was excellent throughout. The story was exciting, although I still don't know who was watching from the forest and why they would suddenly start to do so, long after the original events. Charlotte Rampling is also very good indeed in her part.

The credits show that quite a lot of it was filmed in South Africa, which seems to have done duty for the USA. This sometimes looked cheap (the little street corner that stands in again and again for New York City) and some of the local actors had dodgy American accents. "Turn left hyah" doesn't strike me as authentic for New Mexico.

It was enjoyable and I recommend it.

However, the actors chosen to depict the characters as they had aged was a real stretch. It was very difficult trying to image the Rufus Sewell turned into Michael Gambone over a 30 years span. Charlotte Rampling wasn't quite as difficult, but it would have been easier to watch and understand had they simply used aging make up. We're only trying to go from actors in the 30's into their 60's. The plot was great and intriguing and fun to follow, but those different faces that didn't really fit interfered.

Having been introduced to Atwell in the Captain America movies, I have become quite a fan. I loved her in Agent Carter and hope for the series to continue regularly; so was very interested to find that she was in a movie - a TV movie but still a movie nonetheless. I have also become a fan of Dockery's, whom I first saw in Downton Abbey, and I think these two are my favourite British actresses, in historical dramas anyway. So the acting is great, though Atwell can not really pass as Russian, plus her 'Russian' accent changed too fast to be believable.

Also, I like the atmosphere of the past better than the present. It feels more authentic, and there was more action there I guess. I was not as interested in the present than I was of the past and the events that happened. But the juxtaposition of the two times was done really well. Action scenes were executed impressively as well with some very thrilling sequences.

I'm not really sure what the significance of Ruth's son was, and her relationship with Karl-Heinz (Alexander Fehling) because maybe it added some depth to her character but the characters seem kind of pointless. Also, it added some confusion to the story as I was wondering what he was involved in when it didn't really affect the main story anyway.

I did not much like the ending as well. The music makes me think something bad happens but it just ends. So yea, I was hoping for a better ending. I like how the story concluded, but the ending scenes just felt like something was missing.

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It's the 70's England. Ruth Gilmartin (Michelle Dockery) visits her mother Sally (Charlotte Rampling) with her son. She is shocked when her mother reveals her secret past. In 1939, she is Russian exile Eva Delectorskaya (Hayley Atwell) in Paris. Her brother is murdered and then she's recruited into British Intelligence. She starts working for Lucas Romer (Rufus Sewell) in AAS Ltd disseminating false information. She's almost killed during an attempted defection by a Nazi in Belgium. As the war advances, her group works in America but the spy world gets murkier.

There are two different sides to this two-part miniseries. In the 70's story, Dockery is functionally shocked by Rampling who at times seem to be a mad woman. It has a paranoid feel but they don't have the same thrills. In the WWII story, the spy story has a good build-up and then plenty of solid spy thrills. All of it combines to be a compelling story weaving in old war rumors. The three female leads are terrific and this is a nice espionage movie.