London Spy

The title of this fantastic series, "London Spy", may be just a little misleading. If you are looking for a well written, edge of your seat, spy story, you've found it here. "London Spy" is an atmospheric, very stylistic, story of the human condition and spies. However, the international intrigue angle of this series is secondary to, but tightly woven through, a love story between Danny and Alex. They meet briefly, by chance, when Alex is on his early morning jog and Danny is at the end of a long night of partying. It is a metaphor for the opposite ends of life, and the world, from which they will come together. Their awkward relationship is a departure from their entrenched and established lives up to that point. Danny is a party boy at the end of a misspent youth and Alex is an overachiever at the end of a youthful, self-imposed, isolation. Together, they find solace in their unlikely love for one another.

I won't talk about the plot here and give away the well written suspense devices but I will say that something happens between Alex and Danny that calls into question Alex's true identity, his intentions, and his sincerity. Things become inexplicable and unpredictable. And for reasons unknown, everyone; Danny's best friend, Alex's mother, the police, everyone, seems invested in convincing Danny that Alex, and their relationship, is a fraud. Danny finds a coded thumb drive among Alex's belongings that seems to hold answers to something; possibly everything. But he does not have the code and therefore can't read it. What ensues from here is a labyrinthine journey through the world of hidden powers, unlikely loyalties, and Danny's questionable past.

These five episodes are brilliantly written, filmed, and the performances are off the charts amazing. Ben Wishaw is just quite frankly one of the most talented and interesting actors working today. He is in every scene. And as brilliant as his construction of a character is, his ability to step aside and "listen" through a scene demonstrates a talent that is truly unique. Charlotte Rampling, with saddest and most seductive eyes in film, is still statuesque and formidable, and gives one of the best performances of her long and storied career. Her voice lilts with soothing assurance as her words cut you off at the knees. Jim Broadbent? Nuf said. Riccardo Scarmarcio, as a heartless male escort, is as alluring as he is repellent. His one scene in episode 4 is hypnotic. Samantha Spiro as a London police detective shows American actresses how to be powerful and threatening without adopting superficial mannish affectations. She is fierce and effective. You do not want to be interrogated by this woman. Mark Gatiss as a record producer, drug provider, orgy organizer, out of Danny's past is as skeevy as they come. He does not have one redeeming quality and he plays it without a micron of shame. Who ever plays a villain this well?

This screenplay by Tom Rob Smith is well written and the cast and director Jakob Verbruggen, pull it all together into a compelling and riveting story. How this story line is parsed out, clues rationed, and then knitted together at the end is fantastic. The cinematography is just manic in the best possible way. The camera swirls around the actors like a shark around a swimmer, pans from mouth to mouth in a conversation literally carrying the dialogue across open space from character to character, pulls in so tight that at times the only image on the screen is the contour of a cheekbone or a speaking mouth. The necktie scene in the opening of episode 2 is powerful because of how beautifully it's filmed.

I have only one complaint . The fifth episode goes a little weak, and has "The End" written all over it. As in, no season 2. This mini series does cater to a fairly narrow audience I guess. There is nothing vulgar or obscene about it but it does contain and imply some rather exotic sexual practices "enjoyed" by both straight and gay people alike. But in this case, by gay people. That may be a bridge too far for some but the quality of this work and the story line of this project more than justifies it. And it never seems out of balance or exploitative. See, again here, I don't want to give away why. You just have to see it for yourself and trust. It is well worth the journey.

A late comment, but I actually did watch this series when it was new, and obsessively, repeating episodes multiple times - at first. Now I'm coming back to it and rewatching it on Netflix streaming. I thought it was going to have lost its magic but no, for all its flaws it's still compulsively watchable.

Many of the things said here that are contradictory are also true. The writing is pretentious and overwrought, but it's also a haunting and entrancing story. Yes, it's utterly absurd the things that happen, but some of the most basic emotions out of which the story is built - the loneliness and need, the romantic affair - are very real and memorable. Perhaps the relationship between Danny and Scottie is a gay old man-young man cliché, but it's still touching and real. The gay spy theme runs up into dangerous clichés too, but still is highly original. And after all, despite the negative stereotypes some have pointed to, this is a spy story where the gayness is not just a weapon or a liability but simply central, a given, and in that regard, Whishaw as an out gay actor can be proud to have played such a marvelous role in it. Above and beyond any specifics of the story there is simply the fact of Danny as a complex, attractive character, basically a mess, and yet utterly sexy and sweet, the kind of gay young man an old dear like Scottie would be happy to love and protect.

Edward Holcorft I'm uncomfortable about. The actor seems so stiff and affected. But that also fits the character of Alex perfectly well: the flaw is in the conception of Alex by the minds behind the series. Jim Broadbent is a consummate pro. But obviously it's Ben Whishaw who makes it all worthwhile and he's touching, real, and as the boyish gay young man, utterly adorable. My excessive fascination with the character of Danny that Ben plays is what kept me coming back over and over, but it was outmatched by my pleasure in Whishaw's authentic and appealing performance, which is one of the best I've seen him in, and he's always good. He's one of the best actors of his generation, some even think the best. There are more mercurial and astonishing ones like Tom Hardy. None so cuddly as Ben though. Sorry I didn't see him as Hamlet.

Then Charlotte Rampling comes along and though it's one of her "standard" roles there's nothing standard about her, she's terrifyingly off-putting, in top form. The second, post-Alex phase investigating Alex is very good. In it, everything in the first phase is undercut and mystified, and this is good, through it seems more programmatic and more far-fetched than the first. It's the last phase where things go down the rabbit hole into sheer nonsense. And you cease to be invested in the story as you were early on. Perhaps you knew this was going to happen. But you liked the overwrought-ness, the camp, so much you accepted anything, and the acting and settings and cinematography were so classy, it was okay. Then it's just bonkers, and it's all more or less thrown away.

Everything is totally stylized. Some of the editing I find annoying, like the jump cuts and paralleled lines of dialogue in the gay love sequence. It all becomes cloying, too-too. And yet, and yet, guilty pleasure though it may be, it's compulsively watchable. I do not know about the other work of the much talked about Tom Rob Smith. I know director Jakob Verbruggen has done other good things. But in "London Spy," the story eventually deteriorates into the preposterous so you don't care about it. Yet it's made its impression, for the excessive but compelling craftsmanship and the magical acting of Ben Whishaw. For all its flaws this weaves a magic spell and leaves a special memory.

There's absolutely no denying this is another example of a wonderfully made British drama production. It is beautifully filmed. The acting marvelous. The directing and editing probably won awards. The subject not one that could even have been tackled a generation ago.

But ...

But, although my wife and I were mesmerized by the first three episodes and absolutely enthralled by the production and couldn't wait for the next one, during the fourth episode I started to get one of those "oh-oh" feelings that the whole plot was just going off the rails. It just felt like the writer wasn't too sure where to do with the whole thing and how to resolve what he started and just making it up minute to minute.

During the final episode that fear was confirmed as the two of us just sat there in silence enduring what we were now committed to watching as we'd made it through the first part of the series. At the end of the episode, I just turned it off in disbelief and my wife summed it up with something like, "what a waste of time that was." So much potential with what started out so promisingly but it all spiraled its way downhill in a painful fizzle for the final 45 minutes. So disappointed. In some ways, the final episode reminded me of bad science fiction it was so silly.

Look, IF you've started watching it and wonder what is happening, by all means finish it. However, if you are reading these reviews prior to seeing episode 1 then both of us would suggest you don't waste your time as you will find yourself let down when it reaches the end.

I honestly have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this. I didn't have the highest expectations because the spy genre isn't my favorite, I think it can be corny, predictable, and forced. This show is exactly the opposite of that. I do think you have to be patient with it. There a subtleness that can be mistaken for something else if you don't look at the big picture. It's really beautifully acted and shot. It provided thrill, suspense, a little humor, without being contrived. It is truly a gem. The chemistry between Danny and Alex is wonderful and very engaging in the sense that you relate with both of them so much. You want to know about Alex, the way Danny does, because there's something intriguing about his stoic but awkward nature. You sympathize with Danny, the feeling of being lost is not foreign to many of us. I watched the first episode a couple days ago and I have not been able to get it off my mind.

An initial warning: there are explicit scenes of male nudity and overt gay sex interaction in the first chapter which may be shocking or disturbing to certain people. I have found them necessary to the plot and by any means with a pornographic intention as someone has suggested here. If you feel strongly against these scenes, perhaps you should skip them, but I would still advise to see the show. It would be a pity to miss such an extraordinary miniseries on behalf of some minutes of physical love between the male characters.

***

There are many ways of setting the table for a spy story. This does it in a quite unusual, anti-Guy Ritchie, anti-Mission Impossible way.

You enter London Spy not through a frenzied mosaic of espionage clues, not through a crazy car/plane/chopper persecution set in a fancy city, not through a climactic adrenaline first scene before the title sequence.

Instead, you will be guided by a "slow motion narrative" through a deeply intimate and loving gay relationship between two strangers. The enigma is rather in the brief emotional hints than in object clues until, in the last couple of minutes in the first episode, the knot is revealed and by then you are already convinced that you are watching something really different and impressive.

The cast and all the actors are simply perfect.

Ben Whishaw brings us a one-man festival in himself, what a talented actor and what a wonderful composition! I had never seen Edward Holcroft before but I have to say he makes a perfect Alex here, as tense and hermetic as vulnerable at the same time.

Plus a great, unreadable Jim Broadbent who disturbs and intrigues you from the first scene. And Charlotte Rampling with her habitual show of performative prowess and depth.

As a bonus, it upturns several stereotypes. First, the matter of homosexuality in a spy context. Second, the fact that such homosexuality is male, and presented as a stylized, highly intimate love story. Then, the kind of intelligence at work in the deductive unveiling of the truth, which is not the usual "cold, analytic, razor-blade precise wit" in the espionage movies. Instead, we see a man equipped with traditionally female cognitive resources: emotional intelligence, insight, keen observation, intuition... This came to me as a surprise. (Kudos to Ben Whishaw)

The show is running on the air as I write this, but so far it is an alluring, impressive series whose end, I hope, will not disappoint and live up to the wonderful expectations set up in the first episodes.