Red Joan

Judi Dench plays an idealistic spy in the provocative true story 'Red Joan'

Judi Dench is the one marquee name associated with the movie "Red Joan." But really, with her on board, who needs more than one? Yet as good as she is, the actress is little more than the framing device for this polished and morally provocative - yet hardly pulse-pounding - tale, loosely based on the life of English spy Melita Norwood. (In her 80s, Norwood, hardly a household name, was exposed for handing atomic secrets to the Russians, dating back to World War II.) Opening with the 2000 arrest of Dench's fictionalized Joan Stanley, and structured as a series of police interrogations, the story is largely told in flashbacks, beginning in 1938, as a young Joan (Sophie Cookson) is gradually radicalized by her Communist lover, Leo (Tom Hughes), and recruited by the KGB. [...]

di Michael O’Sullivan, articolo completo (2463 caratteri spazi inclusi) su The Washington Post 23 aprile 2019