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Trumbles (5)
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Yeah, I get the impression that IMDb's forum traffic split to at least three or four different places and none of them have picked up the momentum that it had yet.
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I'm especially puzzled though by the OP mentioning the schoolboy as an example of the film doing the casting better. The role barely amounts to anything in the film anyway, but it seems the clearest example of the actor simply being wrong for the part.
In the TV series Roach is maybe a bit of a geek or misfit, but he's also someone excited by the ideal of the honourable adventurer that he's got from books and looks up to Prideaux accordingly. It's natural for Prideaux to feel some affection in return, recognising his own past as a wide-eyed protegé (even though we might suspect that the boy has little of the potential for the life that Jim had). What the connection is supposed to be between the broken agent and the moon-faced twit who haunts his caravan in the film is anyone's guess.
I can only agree with the general feeling on this thread that the TV version was cast better (and/or the cast was directed better).
Of course once you're very familiar with one take on a character it's very difficult to accept anything else as valid, and I've only read the book once a long time ago so I don't know how faithfully eg Connie is represented in each.
But regardless, Beryl Reid seemed to me to present a very poignant and memorable character. Kathy Burke played Kathy Burke.
It's a while since I watched the film – for one thing it was just too annoying to watch more than a couple of times – but in general the TV version sets high standards which the film simply failed to challenge for one reason or another.
The film just doesn't give enough time to Ricki and Irina for them to develop in the way that they do in the series. Still, it's hard to imagine Hardy matching Bennett's portrayal of Tarr's essential smirking nastiness – and that surely loses one of the themes of Le Carré's plot which is the tension between trying to uphold moral principles whilst relying on useful amoral scum. It's even harder to imagine Svetlana Khodchenkova doing a comparable job to Susan Kodicek in capturing Irina's disillusionment, desperation, faith, dignity and amusement.
It depends what you mean. The later episodes don't have a sharp change in style or anything like that so if you just don't like the way the early ones were done then maybe it's not for you. For example it's not going to become fast paced at any point (except very slightly when they spring the trap to catch the mole).
You say it's been a 'real effort' to watch. It certainly demands concentration, which is something its fans like. That said, I think a lot of people find it quite confusing on the first watch if they haven't read the book, and enjoy it more on second viewing. It's not easy following the story of how a mole named Gerald learns how to make witchcraft using chickenfeed and runs away to the circus.
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