Amazon.com Essentials:
Intelligent casting, strong performances, and the persuasive chemistry
between Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer prove the virtues in director
Fred Schepisi's well-intended but problematic screen realization of this
John Le Carré espionage thriller. At its best, The Russia House
depicts the bittersweet nuances of the pivotal affair between a weary,
alcoholic London publisher (Connery) and the mysterious Russian beauty
(Pfeiffer) who sends him a fateful manuscript exposing the weaknesses
beneath Soviet defense technology. Connery's Barley is a gritty,
all-too-human figure who's palpably revived by his awakening feelings for
Pfeiffer's wan, vulnerable Katya, whose own reciprocal emotions are equally
convincing. Together, they weave a poignant romantic duet.
The problems, meanwhile, emanate from the story line that brings these
opposites together. Le Carré's novels are absorbing but typically internal
odysseys that seldom offer the level of straightforward action or simple
arcs of plot that the big screen thrives on. For The Russia House,
written as glasnost eclipsed the cold war's overt rivalries,
Le Carré means to measure how old adversaries must calibrate their battle
to a more subtle, subdued match of wits. Barley himself becomes enmeshed
in the mystery of the manuscript because British intelligence chooses to
use him as cat's paw rather than become directly involved. Such subtlety
may be a more realistic take on the spy games of the recent past, but it
makes for an often tedious, talky alternative to taut heroics that Connery
codified in his most celebrated early espionage role.
If the suspense thus suffers, we're still left with an affecting love
story, as well as some convincing sniping between British and U.S.
intelligence operatives, beautifully cast with James Fox, Roy Scheider, and
John Mahoney. Veteran playwright Tom Stoppard brings considerable style to
the dialogue, without solving the problem of giving us more than those
verbal exchanges to sustain dramatic interest. --Sam Sutherland
