Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 2011 Cold War spy film directed by Tomas Alfredson. The screenplay was written by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, based on John le Carré's 1974 novel of the same name. The film stars an ensemble cast led by Gary Oldman as George Smiley, with Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciarán Hinds, David Dencik and Kathy Burke. It is set in London in the early 1970s and follows the hunt for a Soviet double agent at the top of the British secret service. The novel had previously been adapted into the award-winning 1979 BBC television series of the same name in which Alec Guinness played the lead role of Smiley.

The film was produced through the British company Working Title Films and financed by France's StudioCanal. It premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. A critical and commercial success, it was the highest-grossing film at the British box office for three consecutive weeks. It won three BAFTA Awards including Outstanding British Film and received three Oscar nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and for Oldman, Best Actor. It has featured on several critics' lists as one of the best films of its era.

Plot

In 1973, "Control", head of British intelligence ("The Circus"), sends Jim Prideaux to Budapest to meet a Hungarian general who has the name of a mole at the top of British Intelligence. Prideaux realises the meeting is a trap, but is shot as he tries to flee. Control and his right-hand man, George Smiley, are forced to retire, and Control dies soon after. Sir Percy Alleline becomes the new Chief, with Bill Haydon, Roy Bland, and Toby Esterhase the other remaining Circus leaders. The four had already begun receiving Soviet intelligence from a secret source (Operation "Witchcraft").

Field agent Ricki Tarr warns Permanent Undersecretary Oliver Lacon that there is a mole among the Circus leadership. Knowing that Control had the same theory, Lacon asks Smiley to investigate, and he agrees on the condition that Tarr's boss Peter Guillam and retired Special Branch officer Mendel joined the investigation. Guillam obtains personnel and financial records from the Circus showing that staff loyal to Control had been forced out, and Smiley interviews analyst Connie Sachs, who was sacked after deducing that Soviet cultural attaché Alexei Polyakov was a military officer and suspecting he was running a mole in London.

Tarr tells Smiley that in Istanbul, his lover Soviet agent Irina offered to exchange the identity of the mole in return for asylum. Hours after Tarr cabled London that a Soviet defector could identify a double agent, the local station chief was murdered, Irina was abducted and Tarr went into hiding. Smiley sends Guillam to steal the duty officer's logbook for that night. Guillam is unexpectedly brought before Circus leadership and told that Tarr is a traitor. Smiley finds that the logbook pages for the relevant night have been removed, convincing Smiley that the mole is trying to discredit Tarr.

Former duty officer Jerry Westerby tells Smiley that when he reported Prideaux's shooting, Control was unresponsive, so Westerby called Smiley's house and left a message with his wife Ann, after which Haydon arrived and took charge. Guillam wonders how Haydon could have learned of the emergency; Smiley reveals that Haydon was Ann's lover.

Smiley finds Prideaux, alive and working as a schoolmaster, who reveals his Budapest mission was to relay the identity of the mole to Control, via one of the code names from the nursery rhyme "Tinker, Tailor" assigned by Control to each member of the Circus suspected to be the mole—"Tinker", "Tailor", "Soldier", "Poorman" and "Beggarman". Instead, he was tortured by the KGB, saw Irina shot in front of him, and interrogated by Karla on how advanced Control's suspicions of a mole were.

Smiley informs Lacon and the Minister that Operation Witchcraft is a ruse: that instead of Polyakov bringing them genuine Russian secrets, the mole is passing Polyakov British secrets for Karla, who has designed Witchcraft's intelligence to lure the CIA into sharing intelligence with Britain, who would in turn via the mole pass it to him.

Smiley threatens Esterhase with deportation to obtain the Witchcraft safe house address. Tarr visits the Paris station and informs London that he has vital information about the security of the Circus. Smiley waits at the safe house for the mole to alert Polyakov that Tarr is about to blow their cover. The mole is revealed to be Haydon, whom Smiley holds at gunpoint. In detention, Smiley confronts Haydon who confirms that he seduced Ann on Karla's orders to cloud Smiley's judgment. Prideaux shoots Haydon dead from a distance. Ann returns home, and Smiley returns to the Circus as its Chief.

Cast

Production

Development The project was initiated by Peter Morgan when he wrote a draft of the screenplay which he offered to Working Title Films to produce. Morgan dropped out as the writer for personal reasons (but still served as an executive producer), and Working Title hired Peter Straughan and Bridget O'Connor to redraft the script, which took a year to finalise. The film was backed financially by France's StudioCanal and had a budget corresponding to $21 million. It is dedicated to O'Connor, who died of cancer during production.

Writing The writers were daunted by the "shadow" of the highly regarded 1979 BBC television adaptation (which they watched once in preparation), and by the novel itself. Although finding the novel a "fantastically rich reading experience" and being encouraged by le Carré's belief it could work as a film, the lack of heroic figures, plot complexity and moral murkiness made it for Straughan "a horrendously difficult prospect for film adaptation".

The writers worked by dividing the novel into fragments, then reordering them, adding new scenes and imagery (mostly invented by O'Connor) at points where the format of film called for them. One of the most significant changes from the novel and television adaptation was not to start the film with a long flashback to Ricki Tarr's story, and instead choosing to use the beginning of the film to introduce the main character of Smiley. They decided not to give dialogue or direct screentime to the characters of Karla and Ann, on the basis that they were the most important characters to Smiley, and their occlusion would give them what Straughan called "a sort of magnetic power".

The writers found maintaining the tone and pace of the novel more challenging than doing justice to the plot within the limitations of a two hour film. They structured the ending of the film as two false finales–the revelation of the mole's identity as Haydon and Smiley's confrontation with him–escalating to the actual finale of Haydon and Prideaux's final meeting. Their drafts were greenlit after six months of writing, and they spent a further six months refining the script up until production.

Director

The producers considered British directors for the film, but they were put off by the reputation of the television adaptation. Park Chan-wook considered directing the film, but decided against it, later praising the finished work and remarking "I wasn’t confident about my ability to adapt it without damaging the original and was concerned about how to satisfy both people who watched the original and those who didn’t".

Tomas Alfredson was confirmed as the director in July 2009; the production was his first film in the English language, with which he lacked fluency. He was a reader of le Carré's work, and was drawn to the story by the tragedy, loneliness, sacrifice and betrayal the spy characters endured in the environment of the Cold War. Ahead of principal photography, Alfredson characterised the film as a horror film due to the viewer's uncertainty of the extent of the deceit at work.

Casting George Smiley

Gary Oldman was cast in the role of George Smiley at the suggestion of producer Tim Bevan. Alfredson thought that he had "a great face" and "the quiet intensity and intelligence that's needed". Oldman was eager for the part, deeming it "a return to proper work" after having been typecast portraying fantasy characters such as Sirius Black and Comissioner Gordon in the preceding decade, but deliberated about taking the role for a month before bowing to pressure to accept.

Known for his larger-than-life performances, Oldman was attracted to the restraint of Smiley's character, saying "It was just a joy to be asked to play something as quiet as this and to run a scene from a passive position rather than physicalize the feelings and the emotions, which I’ve sometimes been asked to do." Oldman put on weight to depict the famously rotund Smiley.

Oldman had a reputation at the time as one of the best actors not to have won an Academy Award, which he would dispel a few years later by winning Best Actor for his performance as Winston Churchill in the 2017's Darkest Hour. Nevertheless, he was nervous about having to follow in the footsteps of Alec Guinness who had distinguished himself in the popular consciousness in his performance as Smiley in the television series, and deliberately did not watch the series after being cast to avoid it influencing his performance. Oldman harboured doubts about his suitability for the role throughout preproduction, and called Alfredson one week into filming to say "Maybe I'm not your man" before being convinced to continue.

Supporting cast Many actors were connected to the other roles at various points, but only days before filming started, Oldman was still the only lead actor who officially had been contracted:

David Thewlis was rumoured to be in the running for a role. Ralph Fiennes was reported in July 2010 to have a starring role. Michael Fassbender was in talks at one point to play Ricki Tarr, but the shooting schedule conflicted with his work on X-Men: First Class; Tom Hardy was cast instead. On 17 September 2010, Mark Strong was confirmed to have joined the cast. Jared Harris was cast but had to drop out because of scheduling conflicts with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows; he was replaced by Toby Jones. John le Carré appears in a cameo as an attendee in the Christmas party scene.

Production design The filmmakers struggled to find a production designer before deciding on Maria Djurkovic. They consulted fashion designer Paul Smith and le Carré on the production design, with le Carré specifying details such as how the office sets should look, what letterhead ought to be used, and the eccentric dress sense of some of his former spy colleagues.

Smiley's eyeglasses were a key design choice for costume designer Jacqueline Durran, Oldman and Alfredson, given their prominence on the face of a character the director was keen to portray as a voyeur; for this reason they eschewed the common practice of coating prop glasses to inhibit reflection. Oldman found the glasses that were eventually used: a plastic pair with thick rims, resembling Guinness' in the television adaptation. Smiley's clothing was inspired by a picture of Graham Greene which Alfredson supplied Durran.

Another design centerpiece was the Circus building, which they depicted using a CGI-manipulated exterior enclosing several floors of increasing importance and security. On the top floor was the leaders' conference room, a windowless enclosure modelled after a 1970s Portakabin and surrounded inside by striking orange soundproofing foam.

Cinematography