John le Carré’s obsession with con artists, philanderers, fabulists and fibbers informs the new adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl, says Dan Slevin.
Alexander Skarsgård (Gaddi) and Florence Pugh (Charlie) in Park Chan-wook’s adaptation of John Le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl for the BBC. Photo: The Little Drummer Girl Distribution Limited / Jonathan Olley
Every year seems to bring a new adaptation of an old Le Carré and the 2018 vintage is a six-part BBC television version of the 1983 novel The Little Drummer Girl (already a 1984 Hollywood star vehicle for Diane Keaton and – looks down and checks notes – Klaus Kinski.) The Little Drummer Girl was le Carré’s first novel to feature a female protagonist but it maintained his obsession with espionage as the natural home for born prevaricators and he considered the acting profession to serve a similar purpose.
In the latest version, rising young star Florence Pugh plays the radical actor Charlie who is recruited, although kidnapped is probably a better word, by Israeli intelligence to infiltrate a Palestinian terrorist cell during the height of the anti-Zionist bombing campaigns of the late 70s. American character actor Michael Shannon – not Israeli nor, as far as I’m aware, Jewish - plays the ruthless clandestine spy chief Kurtz and Swede Alexander Skarsgård – also not Israeli, nor as far as I’m aware, Jewish - plays Gaddi, the former special forces soldier and retired undercover agent brought out of his PTSD retirement to coach Charlie. I mention the nationality of these actors only because in other circumstances authenticity is preferred but they both seem accurate enough portrayals to me.
Photo: The Little Drummer Girl Distribution Limited
In an elaborate charade, Charlie is wooed by Gaddi in London, on the beaches of a Greek island and finally in an after-hours visit to the Acropolis in Athens. Feisty but curious, she agrees to drive a Mercedes full of Semtex through Yugoslavia to Germany where she will meet the rest of the team, a team that doesn’t know her and doesn’t know that the Palestinian boyfriend she is supposed to be in love with is being tortured by Kurtz in an apartment in Munich.
The first mission goes well, and she is spirited away to a refugee camp in Lebanon to be trained for a mission that will be much more deadly than the first. Throughout, we are asked to believe that Charlie’s sympathies will inevitably lie with the downtrodden and that she might turn to them at any moment, especially considering the Israelis in this story are ruthless killers in their own right. In fact, it’s only the always-present cynical twinkle in the eye of the great Shannon that humanises them at all.
Michael Shannon portrays Kurtz and The Barbican portrays The Munich Olympic Village in The Little Drummer Girl. Photo: The Little Drummer Girl Distribution Limited / Jonathan Olley
Le Carré’s fascination with con artists, philanderers, fabulists and fibbers of all kinds is in top gear here. Shannon’s Kurtz having to check which name and glasses he’s supposed to be wearing before every meeting; Gaddi playing the part of terrorist Khalil and his younger brother Salim so effectively that Charlie – and the audience – has to stop and take stock every so often and ask, hold on – who was he then?
And then there is Pugh as Charlie – charmingly impugning the reputation of actors everywhere as rogues not to be trusted. At one point she convincingly spins a yarn about her con-man father dying in prison – a story plucked straight from le Carré’s own life.
For film fans, the most interesting thing going on here is the direction of the great Korean master Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Stoker) who seems like an unusual choice and whose signature look doesn’t change that this is a Le Carré story first. It’s effectively-directed but it’s only the flat-coloured art direction – the greens and the browns - that give him away.
The series also makes excellent use of remaining neo-brutalist architecture, especially the estate around the Barbican in London which also doubles for the Munich Olympic Village.
The Little Drummer Girl is now streaming on TVNZ On Demand.
