Once in a blue moon, we watch a movie that was so good, the review was quite easy to write. Or perhaps harder – with a great plot, acting and cinematography, there was virtually nothing to make fun of. The best I could come up on this one was, in the voice of the Curse of Oak Island narrator, “Could it be, that THE GREAT Dame Judi Dench is really a traitor against her beloved England? Is it possible??” We will have to find out.
So, in a nutshell, this was based on the true story of Melita Norwood, a physicist charged with funneling nuclear weapon development data to the USSR during WWII. Judi Dench played Joan (Melita’s character in the movie), and since much of the movie was in the 1930s and 40s, Sophie Cookson played the young Joan. Tom Hughes played Leo, the communist German (who escaped the persecution of Jews) that Joan met at Cambridge and with whom she fell in love. Tereza Srbova played Sonya, a communist friend of Leo that Joan also befriended at Cambridge. Steven Moore played Max, the scientist Joan worked for after Cambridge (working on development of the atomic bomb) and later fell in love with. Finally, Ben Miles played Nick, Joan’s son and attorney.
We started in 2000, where Joan was arrested for espionage. As she was questioned by authorities, the movie flashbacked to the 1930s, starting at Cambridge, with most of the characters in graduate school. Here there were socialists and communists protesting Nazi Germany – everyone hates Nazis – even Elwood: “I hate Illinois Nazis!” Here is where Joan became indoctrinated into communism. After graduating, she took a job working on nuclear weapon development. In an early scene, she was dismissed as a woman, with scientists thinking she was just a secretary. However, when hearing that they were having problems separating nuclear isotopes of uranium in gaseous state, she piped up with the idea of using centrifuges. I wonder if in real life she was the first to come up with this idea? Google says no – oh well.
At the end of the war, we discovered Joan’s motivation – she was horrified by the US nuclear attacks on Japan, and fearing further use of nuclear weapons against the USSR, she decided to help them develop their own so global peace, or at least no more use of nuclear weapons, would be possible.
No need to tell the rest of the story, this was a riveting movie and made even more so as the basic elements were based on a true life.
Dame Judi Dench says it all! 9 soviet spies out of 10.