...I guess I have to keep making separate posts to ward spoilers XD;
Tinker Tailor: A guide for the perplexed. Which is actually an explanation of WHY the movie is confusing XD (i.e. the directorial choices that made it what it is). Although I'm in the camp of finding the ending somewhat sinister and not purely triumphalist (setting aside whether a triumphalist ending works with the rest of the movie or not) -- that last shot of Smiley reminded me of the UBER-CREEPY last shot in Perfect Blue, though it took me a while to pin down the reference. I do agree movie!Smiley is more pissed off, both righteously and not-so-righteously. Book!Smiley at the crux experiences a sensation of "oh God this is going to be a shitty day/week/rest of life for EVERYONE I know and there is no way to avoid it now."
Other characterization changes while I'm at it:
1) Tarr is more likeable, partly because the script trims a lot of his caddishness, but also because he's Tom Hardy. Like, the AU Michael Fassbender version of this character would have given off a way different vibe. XD; (See: Haywire, which I should review at some point. Also, this is the alternate universe where Jared Harris is Alleline and John Hurt is cast as Smiley, so Gary Oldman gets to be Robert Downey Jr.'s Moriarty.)
2) Mark Strong ttly owns Jim Prideaux, but the more I think about it the more I feel like book!Prideaux is unsettling in a way movie!Prideaux isn't? I mean, I could have just been lost by the end, but I thought the movie version of the hit was sanctioned or at least semi-sanctioned. In the book, not only is it not sanctioned, you don't get to see Prideaux figure the plot out and decide to take matters into his own hands (Smiley doesn't tell him, so he tails Smiley and Guillam and puts it together himself). Again as dubdobdee points out, it's not the "moral" action to take, because they lose their blown networks to the Russians (who now have no incentive to trade).
Like, the thing about Prideaux as a character, in the book, is he doesn't seem to have much of an inner life when you encounter him head-on - not even when you're in his perspective. He's ttly srs and externally oriented. You get this steady pileup of third-party evidence** that he loved and trusted Haydon, and a bunch of hints that of the Circus dudes, he's the coldest killer in the field. (In fact, based on the reader's bkgnd info, Haydon's execution - which is way more frighteningly intimate in the book - is so much Prideaux's "handwriting" that the other dudes should have figured it out immediately. XD;; Not that they eventually don't.) The movie shows you the scene, and something of what the characters were feeling through it, but in the book you're left to your own horrible imaginings, basically.
** I was reading like, so I guess their relationship is meant to be ambiguous... then I was like, wait, by the standard of WHAT IS AMBIGUITY in this book? This is completely out in the open, lol.
I keep forgetting that I was actually at the red carpet premiere of this. XD; ("Colleeeeeeeen!")
I have figured out how to add the footer on a crosspost! Go me! /rollsalot (Original post is here: http://petronia.dreamwidth.org/35242.html)
Other characterization changes while I'm at it:
1) Tarr is more likeable, partly because the script trims a lot of his caddishness, but also because he's Tom Hardy. Like, the AU Michael Fassbender version of this character would have given off a way different vibe. XD; (See: Haywire, which I should review at some point. Also, this is the alternate universe where Jared Harris is Alleline and John Hurt is cast as Smiley, so Gary Oldman gets to be Robert Downey Jr.'s Moriarty.)
2) Mark Strong ttly owns Jim Prideaux, but the more I think about it the more I feel like book!Prideaux is unsettling in a way movie!Prideaux isn't? I mean, I could have just been lost by the end, but I thought the movie version of the hit was sanctioned or at least semi-sanctioned. In the book, not only is it not sanctioned, you don't get to see Prideaux figure the plot out and decide to take matters into his own hands (Smiley doesn't tell him, so he tails Smiley and Guillam and puts it together himself). Again as dubdobdee points out, it's not the "moral" action to take, because they lose their blown networks to the Russians (who now have no incentive to trade).
Like, the thing about Prideaux as a character, in the book, is he doesn't seem to have much of an inner life when you encounter him head-on - not even when you're in his perspective. He's ttly srs and externally oriented. You get this steady pileup of third-party evidence** that he loved and trusted Haydon, and a bunch of hints that of the Circus dudes, he's the coldest killer in the field. (In fact, based on the reader's bkgnd info, Haydon's execution - which is way more frighteningly intimate in the book - is so much Prideaux's "handwriting" that the other dudes should have figured it out immediately. XD;; Not that they eventually don't.) The movie shows you the scene, and something of what the characters were feeling through it, but in the book you're left to your own horrible imaginings, basically.
** I was reading like, so I guess their relationship is meant to be ambiguous... then I was like, wait, by the standard of WHAT IS AMBIGUITY in this book? This is completely out in the open, lol.
I keep forgetting that I was actually at the red carpet premiere of this. XD; ("Colleeeeeeeen!")
I have figured out how to add the footer on a crosspost! Go me! /rollsalot (Original post is here: http://petronia.dreamwidth.org/35242.html)