Mark Reviews Movies: RED JOAN

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 18, 2019

It's folly to trust the accuracy of movies based on true stories, and it's even greater folly even to consider trusting a movie "inspired by" a true story. Red Joan is the latter variety of reality-based tale.

The plot loosely comes from the true story of Melita Norwood, a British citizen who started spying for the Soviet Union around the age of 25. In 1999, when she was 87, Norwood's activities were made public, seven years after they were uncovered and around 20 years after she stopped them.

That sounds like the foundation of a fascinating story, and it likely was one. Screenwriter Lindsay Shapero, though, takes that basic outline—a spy who isn't discovered until well past the time that such activities would be relevant on the domestic and international stages—and makes what amounts to a historical fantasy.

The biggest change between the history of the real Norwood and the fictional Joan Stanley is one of ideology. Norwood didn't hide her politics, before or after being uncovered. She spied for the various Soviet intelligence agencies that existed during her espionage career because she believed in the Communist state. It was that simple.

Likely believing that maybe having a protagonist who betrays her country, in order to help a corrupt foreign entity led for some stretch by a murderous dictator, won't elicit much sympathy for the character, Shapero gives Norwood a different name and a complete ideological overhaul. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, especially since the movie makes no false claims that this is supposed to be a faithful representation of Norwood's story.

In such matters, accuracy is maybe the second or third concern for a movie based on—or inspired by—historical fact. It's almost irrelevant here, since we get what amounts to fiction. The changes, though, have to make sense—in terms of drama, character, and story. Here, it's a bit of a toss-up in terms of the benefits, except when it comes to the main character. That element becomes a mess.

There are two timelines here. The first has an elderly Joan (played by Judi Dench, doing much fretting and sighing) being detained by the British government, following the death of a government official whose own newly uncovered history of spying puts Joan under suspicion. Her son Nick (Ben Miles), an attorney, tries to help, and later, he becomes the staunch voice against the crimes of which his mother is accused. While she's being interrogated, memories of the younger Joan (Sophie Cookson) unfold.

While a physics student at the University of Cambridge before World War II, the younger Joan makes friends with Sonya (Tereza Srbova) and her German cousin Leo (Tom Hughes), who runs a group advocating socialism on campus. A bit of a loner otherwise, Joan starts attending rallies and a romance with Leo, who is detained when the war starts and becomes a spy when it's finished.

As the war in Europe comes to an end, Joan begins working on the Tube Alloys program, the British equivalent of the Manhattan Project, where she gets into a romantic tryst with her married boss Max (Stephen Campbell Moore). Leo repeatedly returns to Joan, looking for a treasonous favor from her.

One could argue that major changes from the real story benefit the potential drama, since there's an actual conflict for the character, those who learn of the truth, and for the audience, who might appreciate a little complexity being added to a fairly black-and-white story of treason. In terms of the story, the conflicted protagonist provides an air of mystery to the juxtaposition of the younger Joan and the older version, since Shapero and director Trevor Nunn keep Joan's guilt or innocence as a secret until it's absolutely necessary to reveal for the plot.

Once the truth does emerge, though, we realize that the mystery of Joan really has been the only thing holding together the drama, the story, and the character's believability. Without directly saying what Joan decides about Leo and, later, Sonya's offer to give nuclear secrets to the Soviet government, the character's motives come into sharp focus. They're a jumble of contradictory ideas—global pragmatism and moral idealism, as well as the fear of the horrors of which humanity is capable and a weird gamble on the notion that the potential for even more horror will set humanity right in the end.

Cookson's performance does shine here, as Joan transforms from a naïve student, embracing whatever comes her way, to someone with a definitive idea of her politics, her desires, and her view of right and wrong. As confused as that last one may be, Cookson at least grounds the character's moral determinations in a genuine sense of anxiety and outrage.

In the end, Red Joan is strictly fiction, despite its basis in a true story. The drama is compelling for a bit, and the story does possess some intrigue about domestic spying and how the evolving nature of a foreign power affects those doing that work. As a study of a conflicted character, though, it takes that conflict too far, leaving us with only a confused sense of that character.

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