Red Joan

Playing the pleasant game of alternative history, we can make a couple of reasonable assumptions.

If Stalin had gotten The Bomb first, would he have used it to achieve global domination? Of course.

And Hitler? He would have leveled London without a second thought.

But the jarring plot point in this narrative is that Joan puts the US in the same category as those guys.

The Yanks took out Hiroshima, and Nagasaki - therefore they have no moral compass whatsoever and poor little Russia must have The Bomb to protect itself.

This is the basic problem with the script: when it comes to science Joan is a very smart cookie.

When it comes to other things - politics, people, sex - she doesn't really seem to know her ass from a hole in the ground.

In her concluding speech she makes the argument that she was right - 50 years of peace proving her decisions - but conveniently fails to mention the epically expensive arms race that resulted.

This is a well-done movie, and certainly worth the time, but the main character - as she's written - is not very convincing and it's reasonable to react to her with a strong sense of impatience.

This is what I call a false biopic. These are usually extremely well made movies with good production values, well acted and directed but they also play fast and loose with the actual facts as to make them more "interesting" to the audience. This genre is very popular, especially in the UK, as they are good award bait and popular with the audiences. These are usually never bad movies and I can't really give them a bad rating, but they also almost always leave me a bit flat and, to be honest, I am getting a bit tired of them. So, Red Joan falls in this category and I have nothing more to add about it, except that at least the creators, having changed almost everything regarding the true story, gave us the courtesy of changing the name of the titular character, a move which I think is at least a bit more honest.

Judi was very good of course, but doesn't feature hugely. Film was ok but felt like a missed opportunity. Could have been better. Meandered through an interesting story in a pedestrian manner. Last 10 mins it picked up. 6/10.

The film as mentioned was extremely interesting but failed to ever really leave 2nd gear the performances was fine and I wasn't bored but it just felt like it could have had another level to it and could really have exploded into action towards the end but continued to plod on at a mediocre pace. Reasonable but nothing special.

This could have easily be a big + spy story. One of those stories that survive the times because the writers dig behind the veils of historic facts, and make essential values of human existance see the light of day. That value here is that one human can break through the simplicfied truths of time-bound consciousness, the illusions of wrong and right, dares to think his own moral mind and make a decision that serves humanity on a deeper level of evolution. It shows as a premise that is strongly tied to the story but not convincingly develloped.

What is left is a skilled and entertaining movie, not a timeless one.