Red Joan (2019) - Movie Review

Communism on film has been around for as long as film itself. The Soviet propaganda machine, in particular the works of Sergei Eisenstein, helped pioneer filmmaking techniques that have become commonplace across the globe. Hell, if we’re talking honestly, Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera is one of the most important films in the history of the medium, and it too wielded communist iconography to make its statements about the potential of cinema.

I bring all this up partly so that those with knee jerk reactions to anything regarding socialism can safely skip this and save themselves some self-induced headaches. But also because, knowing the ideology’s connections to the art form, it’s rather disappointing that a modern film could depict that same ideology in quite possibly the dullest fashion possible.

Based on the Jennie Rooney novel of the same name, itself based on the real-life story of KGB spy Melita Norwood, this film starts on an immediately wonky foot with how it is framed. Told largely in flashback as the elderly Joan is being questioned by British Special Branch, this method of storytelling feels like an excuse to get someone as lauded as Judi Dench involved… but only for the purposes of stunt casting. She does well enough in her scant moments, but she ends up falling into the cracks of the screenplay, leaving Sophie Cookson as her younger self to carry most of the film. And oh boy, is this a film that needs carrying.

For all its pretences about espionage, tensions between the Allies and the Axis powers, or even casual sexist condescension (because when writing period films about women, these quips apparently need to be made by creative law), nothing that is shown has a sense of urgency or even life to it.

Theatre director and on-again-off-again filmmaker Trevor Nunn’s return to the director’s chair after an over-two-decade absence serves as an example of why the man only makes a film once every 10 years at best. It’s so sterile and washed-out in its visuals that it makes both the literal and thematic inclusions of red nothing more than a pleasant reprieve from the blandness. For a story this politically-charged, ‘pleasant’ shouldn’t be in the conversation.

Considering how the discourse regarding communism vs. capitalism has become in the social media age, I’m going to try and keep my own personal politics out of the equation for a change. I’m not looking at this as a chance for one ideology to be presented over another; I’m just here for an engaging story. And that isn’t what we get. The script tries to paint some shades of grey regarding the titular Joan’s actions, coupled with the influence of nuclear weapons even in non-nuclear war, but by the time we get to what is ultimately a painfully limp justification for what has been done… no cares to be found here, sorry.

It’s an abrasively average outing that makes lip service to asking bigger questions and making the audience question their moralities, but through a mismatch of pacing, framing and just basic cinematic storytelling, the biggest dilemma this film raises is whether or not it’s worth asking for a refund.