Red Joan (2019)

Film: Red Joan (2019)
Stars: Judi Dench, Sophie Cookson, Tom Hughes, Tereza Srbova, Stephen Campbell Moore
Director: Trevor Nunn
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

It hasn't been a great year at the movies for Dame Judi Dench.  Obviously you all know about how she's getting railed (and not by Skimbleshanks) for her work in Cats, a movie that has become the cinematic version of a cosmic joke (is it "bad" enough that it could theoretically start being a midnight movie, though?  Not to make a bad pun, but I feel like this film could have a "new" life in such a camp fashion).  But before that, we had Red Joan, a film that came out in the United States in April, which was panned by critics and had abysmal box office despite Dench being something of a draw there, especially among a certain set of arthouse cinemas ("movies your aunt goes to," if you will).  Next year Dench's prospects seem a bit stronger, with supporting parts in Blithe Spirit (based on the Noel Coward play), Six Minutes to Midnight (a war drama), and the long-awaited Artemis Fowl, but for now we must record Dench's rough 2019 for posterity, and get into Red Joan.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses on Joan Stanley (Dench in the modern scenes, Cookson in the flashbacks), a bright young woman at Cambridge who begins working on a mission to create the atomic bomb before the Germans and Russians.  She partners with Leo (Hughes), a German Jew who is helping the Soviet Sonya (Srbova) to get some of the secrets to the Russians, not necessarily because they all believe in the Russians, but because Joan believes that the only way to prevent additional attacks like those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is if everyone has the bomb (so that no one will use it).  Joan has affairs with both Leo and one of the leading scientists Max (Moore) on both sides of the encounter, eventually getting the secrets to the other side but not being caught until decades later, when as an old woman she has to answer for what she did during the war effort.

The film could be so good.  Dench, of course, is a world-class actress, and this is a compelling, fascinating story, one that at least in part is based on real-life, as Melita Norwood (a British civil servant) was the original "Red Joan."  There's also some fascinating politics to be had here.  While Joan betrayed her country, one could argue that the fact that the Soviets so quickly got the atomic bomb created something of a standstill peace for decades, with neither side willing to risk their own annihilation.  This is a peace that monsters like Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump threaten to upset daily, but that's a conversation for a different article.

Then why is Red Joan so boring and messy?  I think part of the reason is that they put Judi Dench front-and-center in the film's marketing (smart-she's the draw), but she's really a supporting player.  It's Cookson's movie, but trying to convince an audience you're Judi Dench isn't going to work; Cookson may be a good fit for the role, but she's not beloved like Dench, and it's a bit of a letdown when we're given so little of the actress we were promised.  However, this would be something you could get over if the flashback scenes weren't so confusing, or if Joan wasn't presented as something of a mirage.  We don't know, in the end, whether she loved Leo or Max more (or equally), and her politics in the present keep altering to match what is going on in the flashbacks.  The film is presented haphazardly, handsome (with showy orchestral from Oscar nominee George Fenton), but so boring.  The film never knows what to do with its star, and doesn't have any other obvious assets since it can't figure out how to make a compelling story into something worth the audience's time.