Actor Benedict Cumberbatch is the actual event in a rather nondescript agent film.
Film genres are fashion items, they come and go. For example, where are the many war films that were released almost every week until the 1970s? They disappeared with their audience, the aging men who couldn’t get their war out of their heads. The Cold War, on the other hand, held up a little better on the screen. At least now and then, spy films still tell of shadow warriors, the unsung heroes and the willing chess pieces on the game boards of the world powers. But spy films have also become rare, and the few that still make it to the cinema in the shadow of James Bond usually look old when they appear. There is definitely a method to this.
“Der Spion” also makes itself comfortable in brown-green tones to look back at the time when the atomic threat appeared within reach. Under the code name “Ironbank”, the Russian secret officer Oleg Penkovsky supplied the West with information in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Its value is controversial, but there is evidence that his images of a Russian missile base in Cuba influenced the course of history. During the Bay of Pigs crisis, Kennedy risked a confrontation with Russia because he could now on the one hand prove that these missiles existed, but on the other hand did not think they were operational. Penkovsky’s story ended tragically after his arrest.
A film about these events therefore has little to reveal; Georgian actor Merab Ninidze is at least a small monument to Penkovsky: he is credibly stylized as a selfless peace fighter, so you can already guess a hint of Gorbachev in him. That doesn’t lift this tragic hero out of his supporting role.
So the British theater and film director Dominic Cooke uses an old genre trick: He chooses an even more inconspicuous main character in this story, the British agent Greville Wynne. Recruited as a businessman active in Moscow, he becomes Penkovsky’s contact person, the “courier” of the original film title. Gwynne was also arrested in Moscow in 1962, but survived and was later exchanged for a Soviet agent.
Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Spy”: Artfully he throttles himself
This historical marginal figure only becomes an event through the occupation. Benedict Cumberbatch has an extraordinary talent for artfully reducing the power of his screen persona. He is one of those character actors who can appear almost invisible at the same time, and yet dominate a scene. Filmmakers constantly expect us ordinary people to identify with other ordinary people. But we will only do them this favor if someone as extraordinary as Cumberbatch embodies this supposed inconspicuousness. But that is exactly what the agent film is about, of course. If spies looked like James Bond, it would be nothing to do with covert operations.
So we like to admire this performance, which is always looking for new highlights: For example the scene when Gywnne is invited to a “Swan Lake” performance by Penkovksy, his new Russian friend. All the musical sensations that went around the world from Liverpool in 1962, for example, have been forgotten. The overwhelming overwhelming effect of this enjoyment of art that overcomes the simple businessman is adorable. It’s easier than you think to melt an agent’s heart.
Unfortunately, not everything is so grateful that you give Cumberbatch to play with. Especially in the last third, the film cannot credibly support what it would like to claim: Perhaps one can still believe the educated Russian that he is ready to sacrifice his life for a peace mission. Gwynne, however, who later styled himself as a hero with two books, is hard to believe. It’s a bit like a doomed espionage mission: You can see what this film is getting at, but the more it soars into the heroic story, the less it fits with the well-hit rest. It doesn’t always have to be the heroic caviar: Benedict Cumberbatch’s humble hero would surely also have feelings of happiness over beetroot salad.
The spy. GB 2020. Directed by Dominic Cooke. 118 min.
