From the director of Let The Right One In, an adaptation of John LeCarre‘s slow-burn adult suspense tale (this time set in the ’70s) about uncovering the identity of a Russian mole within the British Secret Service. Pure candy and ice cream for someone like myself, but for the under-30 Eloi crowd….? And for Joe Popcorn living in Dubuque and Trenton and Tucumcari?

Shot by the great Hoyte van Hotema (The Fighter) and costarring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and Ciaran Hinds. And “opening” only two and half months from now at Telluride/Toronto/Venice (although the U.S. debut via Focus Features isn’t until November).

The question for me is how long will it run? How thorough will the plotting be? The original British-produced miniseries adaptation with Alec Guinnness ran for six hour-long episodes (although Acorn Media’s DVD box set runs 290 minutes).

An Amazon poster wrote the following about the miniseries: “I found it enormously refreshing to have to work hard at understanding [the goings-on]. This difficulty, of course, is not superfluous, but central to the mood of the story. The complexity mirrors the moral complexity of the situation the characters find themselves in. The makers of the series could have simplified the plot, could have made everything that was happening clear from the outset, but it would have thereby distorted the story.

“The opening credits begin with a shot of those Russian dolls that open to reveal a still smaller doll inside. The story is one of layers beneath layers, like unpeeling an onion. The complexity of the narrative enhances this.”