When he’s told he’s no longer needed-a withdrawal that would leave Alex dangling, with no way to defect to the West with his family, an escape the CIA and MI6 have promised to effect-he begs his handlers to let him return to Russia one last time, a trip that twists the story into more somber corners.ĭirected by Dominic Cooke (On Chesil Beach), and written by Tom O’Connor, The Courier is almost two films in one: the second half is much darker and more intense than the first, but the shift is so delicately abrupt that at first you barely register it. Before long, Greville has been drawn in both by the sober necessity of his mission-his handlers have scared him, manipulatively, with horror stories about what would happen to his family in the event of a nuclear attack-and by his loyalty to Alex. Greville and Sheila have a young son, and Alex has a family, too, a wife and a daughter. Over several visits-and one in which Alex comes to England-the two men get to know one another and become friends. The mission seems harmless enough, until he’s pressed into service for further trips, bringing top-secret information back with him. That won’t come to pass: Greville is sworn to secrecy, though his mission at first only involves traveling to Russia to meet with a group of businessmen and make contact with Penkovsky, whom he’ll come to know as Alex. “I can’t believe I’m actually having lunch with…spies!” he says, looking from one to the other as if he’s already weaving a story to tell his wife, Sheila (a marvelously wry and subtle Jessie Buckley), at the dinner table. Until that point, The Courier has a jaunty, larkish quality: when Greville is first approached by a CIA and an MI6 agent working in tandem-played by Rachel Brosnahan and Angus Wright-he’s more amused than bemused by their poker-faced professionalism, their aims disguised by almost comically vague language.
0 kommentar(er)
