A Perfect Spy

As good as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and The Constant Gardener are, television has served John le Carre better than the big screen. Le Carre's novels have labyrinthine plots that continually circle back on themselves and characters burdened by complex motivations they don't understand themselves, as wonderfully captured in Ralph Fiennes' much-underrated performance in The Constant Gardener. A television miniseries, if handled properly, gives all these ambiguities time to unravel, accenting nuances that might be missed in a briefer adaptation.

"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is le Carre's masterpiece. Loosely based on the Burgess, Philby, and Maclean scandal, the 1974 novel makes high drama from the muddled motives leading to betrayal. The 1979 television adaptation, brilliantly directed by John Irvin -- with Alec Guinness' greatest performance as the owlish cuckold George Smiley -- is arguably the best espionage adaptation ever, as well as the best miniseries. The 1982 sequel, Smiley's People, is also excellent, though it lacks the emotional depth of its predecessor.

Then there is A Perfect Spy, adapted for television in 1987 by Arthur Hopcraft, who also wrote the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy script. Le Carre's 1986 novel is his most autobiographical, examining his intense relationship with his con-man father. Despite the title, A Perfect Spy is less about espionage than personal betrayals.

A Perfect Spy covers the life of Magnus Pym from his birth in 1932 up to 1987. Magnus is played as a young boy by Jonathan and Nicholas Haley who, a year later, would be the boy versions of the twins played by Jeremy Irons in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers. Benedict Taylor is the teenaged Magnus and Peter Egan the adult. Magnus adores his father (Ray McAnally), but his relatively placid life begins to unravel when Rick is sent to prison for fraud. Magnus and his mother (Caroline John) then go to live with her stern minister brother (Iain Cuthbertson).

This first of 7 episodes of the 6 and a half hour drama (on 3 discs) is a bit heavy going with an almost Bergmanian gloom. Matters gradually become more interesting and really get rolling when Magnus takes up spying full time in the fourth episode. When he is seventeen, Magnus is spotted by the ironically named Jack Brotherhood (Alan Howard) and he enters military intelligence upon leaving Oxford, just as le Carre did. Magnus becomes an expert in Czechoslovakia and supposedly develops a network of agents. Actually, he is recruited as a double agent by Axel (Rudiger Weigang), whom he had met years earlier when Axel was a refugee in Switzerland. Neither Magnus nor Axel believe in communism (or any causes). They believe in friendship.

Magnus' complicated motivations are the center of A Perfect Spy. He has been programmed in duplicity by Rick and becomes a traitor in part as an act of revenge against his father as well as Brotherhood, another father figure. Despite two wives and two mistresses, Magnus truly loves only Axel, though he never realizes how his friend is subtly betraying him. When Magnus runs away from his women and his work, he is really running away from Rick and that part of his father he sees in himself.

The pacing and look of A Perfect Spy resemble those of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People not only because Hopcraft wrote two of them but because Clare Douglas edited all three. While A Perfect Spy, smoothly directed by Peter Smith, may seem slow going for some, this pace is necessary to peal back all the layers masking the pain at Magus' center.

The best thing about A Perfect Spy is the uniformly excellent performances. Egan, who gave a terrific interpretation of Oscar Wilde in the 1978 miniseries Lillie, is adept at conveying weakness and indecision. Whenever Magnus comes close to cracking and forces a smile to counter his despair, Egan's eyes expose the lie of the smile.

Even better is McAnally, whose best-known film role is as the father in My Left Foot and who appeared in several Neil Jordan films before his death in 1989. For A Perfect Spy to work, we must believe that Rick can charm anyone into anything and McAnally expertly shows how the senior Pym can lie with a straight face. Even Rick believes his own lies. One of McAnally's best moments comes when Rick presents Magnus and his first wife with a car at their wedding, only to see police approaching, and the con man stares at them with total, unexaggerated innocence.

The DVD looks a tad grainy, but the BBC shot serious dramas in dark, muted tones during the 80s. A Perfect Spy cries out for interviews with le Carre and Egan, but the only extras are a brief text bio of the novelist and filmographies of six of the actors. -- Michael Adams