Hi, this is Dana Steven Slate's movie critic here with a Slate's spoiler special podcast on Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, the new John LaCarray adaptation directed by Thomas Alfredson. And here with me in the Slate studio is June Thomas. Hi, June. Hey, Dana. You are Slate's culture critic. A culture critic at slate. Yes. And you are also a knower of the Jean LaCarray corpus of, at least the Tinker Taylor's Soldier Spy of, which is one of the reasons I wanted you to come in and talk about this movie.

You just recently re-watched the entire six-hour original miniseries, right?

Right, right.

With Alec Guinness in the title world.

Yes, yes, yes.

I remembered in the days of video stores, having to run to the video store at like five to ten just before it closed because I could not go to bed without knowing what happened next.

So, yeah, I remember it very fondly, so I just rewatched it.

And you just forked it over to me.

So before I write about this, I'm going to be getting into some Alec Guinness myself.

You're going to be getting no sleep dinner.

I can't wait.

I'm also reading the book, so I'm fully waiting through the morass of John La Carre right now.

But I'm really happy you're here because I think this may be the first time that I've just

nakedly begged someone in a spoiler special to tell me what happened in a movie.

And maybe you'll agree with me that the principal shortcoming of this movie, which in so many ways is very stylish and full of good dramatic moments, is that the plot is really, really hard to follow.

It is hard to follow, but I almost think it doesn't matter. I mean, it seems kind of a crazy thing to

say in a thriller, in a hudanit, in a find the mole story, but it was so atmospheric. It almost felt that the

mystery was just a vehicle for the atmosphere. And so, yeah, I agree it was kind of unclear

who the bad guy was, although it did become rather clear. It wasn't that mysterious. But it almost

didn't matter. I didn't care that it was a bit big. Wow, this is the second spoiler podcast I've

recorded in a day where the other person, my interlocutor, liked the movie better than I did.

Because I have to say, I completely agree for the first 45 minutes or so that I was willing to put up

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