Red Joan

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.

Sorry, but Melita Norwood (the person on whom this was based) was a despicable person who fervently and slavishly loved Stalinist Soviet Union long after we knew they were as murderous and oppressive as the Nazis had been.

She did not go to Cambridge, but dropped out of Southhampton. She spent most of her time compromising and destroying the lives of many of her co-workers. And as a direct result of her work the Russians were able to target annihilative fission weapons at the UK instead of basic atomic bombs.

Critics blast this film as a missed opportunity. I heartily disagree, spy films do not all have to be fast paced intrigue. This film is a slow burn and thoughtful character study on the motivations of a woman in extraordinary positions.

Red Joan is a cosy bland film inspired by the true story of granny spy Melita Norwood. She was unmasked as a KGB agent late in her life.

Judi Dench plays the elderly Joan Stanley who is taken in for questioning by the police as a suspected Soviet spy.

Her son Nick (Ben Miles) is a barrister who helps her as she is questioned. Nick learns that his mother was a scientist who worked in the laboratory that developed the atom bomb.

The flashbacks scenes had young Joan (Sophie Cookson) as an idealist communist sympathiser. She is fascinated by Leo (Tom Hughes) and his cousin Sonya who are supporters of the Russian revolution.

Joan gets a job within the Tube Alloys project. The government project that secretly developed the atomic bomb.

After the bombing of Hiroshima. Joan finds herself passing secrets so the Soviets also have parity in the nuclear arms race.

Joan also falls in love with her boss, Professor Max Davis (Stephen Campbell Moore) who is later suspected of possible espionage.

This is a plodding, sludgy film with an interminable romance subplot. This is really a television film.

Just because it is based on true facts does not meant it will be an interesting movie. This does not hold a candle to films/tv shows about the Cambridge Spies; Philby, Burgess, Blunt, Maclean.

There are some good performances but it is a movie with no thrills.

I also did not buy the fact that Russia would not had been able to have developed the atomic bomb without Joan's help. After the war, Russian bought over their own share of Nazi scientists who had worked in developing the bomb.

Greetings again from the darkness. Sir Trevor Nunn is a Tony Award winner best known for his stage productions, and for being director of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1968 through 1986. The film is "inspired by a true story", and Lindsay Shapero has adapted Jennie Rooney's 2013 novel, which was a blend of history and fiction taken from the life of Melita Norwood ... the longest serving British KGB spy.

Dame Judi Dench plays Joan Stanley (the movie version of the aforementioned Ms. Norwood) whom we first meet as she is being arrested for treason by MI5 agents in May 2000. Most of the film consists of Joan being interrogated while having flashbacks to her earlier life, beginning in 1938 at Cambridge University. She was a hard-working nose-to-the grindstone Physics student who is drawn in to the fascinating world of Sonja (Tereza Srbova) and her brother Leo (Tom Hughes), who are supporters of the Soviet party. In the flashback scenes, young Joan is played by Sophie Cookson (who reminds of a young Faye Dunaway).

The film spends most of its time in flashback mode, and Ms. Cookson excels as the idealistic Joan first in her scenes with Sonja and Leo, and later with Stephen Campbell Moore who plays Professor Max Davies. Joan is recruited to work in the lab with Davies, as the secretly work to create the Atom bomb. It's Sonja and Leo who coerce Joan into passing along secret documents that allow Stalin's Russia to keep pace on bomb development. She easily flies under the radar since, as Sonja tells her, "Nobody would suspect us. We are women."

From a historical perspective, the film kind of falls flat. It also doesn't qualify as a British spy thriller since there are really no thrills to be found. "The Americans" TV show was infinitely better at the spy genre than this one; however, if the film works on any level, it's as moral debate fodder. Joan clearly has her reasons for doing what she thought was right ... leveling the playing field between super powers, so that none had an advantage. The question is, what is right and who is to decide? During this time, alliances were quite fluid between Russia, Britain and the United States, and she believed her actions saved lives.

Dame Judi is really not on screen much, and when she is, there's little for her to do except play innocent and dream of years gone by. She was labeled "Granny spy", and though her story is interesting, and does provide yet another aspect from WWII, the film itself never really grabs us as viewers. The early periods are well filmed with beautiful costumes and sets, but we are never as dumbstruck as Joan's son (Ben Miles) when he admits he thought his mum was merely an over-educated librarian. As a character study, there's something here ... but as entertainment, it's a bit lacking.