Review
TV Reviews
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Beginning Monday, AMC presents a new miniseries called "The Little Drummer Girl" based on the spy novel by John le Carre. It's being shown on consecutive nights in two-hour blocks. Our TV critic David Bianculli heartily approves of the miniseries and its scheduling.
DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: AMC's decision to show its new six-hour miniseries "The Little Drummer Girl" over three consecutive nights is a smart strategy. This spy story, based on the bestselling novel by John le Carre, begins at such a deliberate pace that it takes almost two hours before the central storyline, the actual spy mission, is set in motion. Had the miniseries been televised in one-hour installments, viewers might've gotten restless and given up. But by the end of the first two-hour block, anyone who stays with it, and I highly recommend you do, will be rewarded with one of the year's most tense and well-acted TV thrillers. The year is 1979. The setting initially is London. Florence Pugh from the recent drama "Lady Macbeth" plays Charlie, an actress in one of the city's small struggling theatrical troupes. A charismatic mystery man, played by Alexander Skarsgard of "Big Little Lies" and "True Blood," attends a couple performances of one production, then offers to fly the troupe to Greece to perform in some sort of special benefit. He's really interested in only one person, the actress Charlie. And it's because his boss, a man named Kurtz, has a special role for her to play. Kurtz, played by Michael Shannon of "The Shape Of Water" and "Boardwalk Empire," thinks Charlie has the perfect acting skills and real-life background to successfully infiltrate a Palestinian terrorist cell that's been conducting a series of bombings.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL")
MICHAEL SHANNON: (As Kurtz) We're not here to attack your politics, Charlie. In fact, we love your crazy politics, every paradox and conflicted spurt of anger or compassion. We believe in a bigger you, that you have talent to waste. And you believe it is being wasted. And if you decide to collaborate with us on this performance, I swear to God you will never be wasted again.
BIANCULLI: Kurtz, who's running this operation for the Israelis, offers her the literal role of a lifetime, playing a version of herself who, because of her background, appearance and talent, is the perfect bait to be noticed and recruited by the terrorists in question.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL")
SHANNON: (As Kurtz) Now, there will be no cut, no curtain - constant improvisation.
FLORENCE PUGH: (As Charlie) Well, [expletive], I've been kidnapped by an experimental theater company.
SHANNON: (As Kurtz, laughter) Experimental, certainly. Your audience - they won't even know they are watching, but they will be grateful. Kids, their parents - innocent bystanders would get a piece of shrapnel in their throat when a bomb goes off right beside them were it not for you. Should you want to go home, of course, back to your pub theaters, your lonely brilliance, no one is stopping you. But if you are at all intrigued by this role, we need to ask you a final round of questions tonight.
PUGH: (As Charlie) What's the character?
SHANNON: (As Kurtz) A terrorist.
BIANCULLI: This spy mission is almost like a play. Kurtz is the director, Skarsgard is the leading man who seduces and falls for Charlie and Charlie is the leading lady all in a very risky and unorthodox plot to infiltrate and neutralize a particularly effective squad of Palestinian bombers. All three of these performers and performances are particularly good. And all three characters have so many layers of deception that they are, in essence, always playing several characters at once. In adapting le Carre's novel to television, writers Michael Lesslie and Claire Wilson have stayed true to the novel's detailed explanation of how and why the Israeli spies found and recruited Charlie. That explains and justifies the slow start. But once it gets going, "The Little Drummer Girl" never stops for a breath. And by the final hour, the intensity is so high that when South Korean director Park Chan-wook, who directed every segment, again slows the pace, it's only to make the tension all but unbearable.
Le Carre as a storyteller has one of the best and longest resumes of anyone in the miniseries genre. His novels have been not only suited for long-form TV treatments but perfect for them. Alec Guinness made British spy George Smiley an unforgettable TV character in the original miniseries version of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" way back in 1979. And just two years ago, Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie made terrific adversaries in a TV adaptation of le Carre's "The Night Manager." "The Little Drummer Girl" is on par with those wonderful works, and its twists and subtleties are pure le Carre. But this new miniseries ended up reminding me of something else as well. The way it lays out its spy caper, chooses its participants and keeps adapting as things go awry, "The Little Drummer Girl" struck me as a variation on another very familiar TV theme. From start to finish, it's like a very expanded episode of "Mission: Impossible," and I mean that as a compliment.
DAVIES: David Bianculli is editor of the website TV Worth Watching and author of "The Platinum Age Of Television: From I Love Lucy To The Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific." On Monday's show...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS")
TIM BLAKE NELSON: (As Buster Scruggs) Maybe some of y'all have heard of me. Buster Scruggs, known to some as the San Saba songbird.
DAVIES: "The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs" is a new Coen brothers film of six stories about the Old West. There's singing, gunslinging cowboys, bank robbers and wagon trains on the Oregon Trail. We'll talk with Joel and Ethan Coen about the film. Hope you can join us.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES MOODY, HANK JONES, KENNY BARRON, TODD COOLMAN AND ADAM NUSSBAUM'S "GOOD BAIT")
DAVIES: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Daniel Miller. Our senior producer is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our associate producer for digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Therese Madden directed today's show. For Terry Gross, I'm Dave Davies.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES MOODY, HANK JONES, KENNY BARRON, TODD COOLMAN AND ADAM NUSSBAUM'S "GOOD BAIT")
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