Series Review: "The Little Drummer Girl" (2018).

"Seduction. Manipulation. Betrayal. Never trust a spy." This is The Little Drummer Girl (2018). This British-American television series directed by Park Chan-wook, adapted by Michael Lesslie and Claire Wilson, based on the novel of the same name by John le Carré. Set in the late 1970s, it follows young, idealistic actress Charlie, whose relationship with the mysterious Becker, an Israeli intelligence officer, leads her into a complex, high-stakes plot devised by spy mastermind Kurtz. She takes on the role of a lifetime as a double agent, and as she is drawn more deeply into a dangerous world of duplicity and compromised humanity, Charlie falls in love with both Becker and Kurtz.

Inspired by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of the 1970s, John le Carré's controversial spy novel transcended the spy novel genre upon its publication in 1983. William F. Buckley, of The New York Times, wrote: "The Little Drummer Girl is about spies as Madame Bovary is about adultery or Crime and Punishment about crime." The novel went to become one of John Grisham's favorite novels. Grisham has said: "I love to read John le Carré, the British guy who's really probably my favorite writer. The Little Drummer Girl is a book I read about every four or five years. It's just so clever and brilliantly plotted. It's the kinda' book-and his writing is off the charts, the way he expresses himself and the way he describes people and dialogue - and every time I read that book, it inspires me to be better." The character of Charmian "Charlie" Ross, the novel's radical left-wing, anti-Zionist, English actress was rumoured to have been modelled after Vanessa Redgrave, but her personality was modeled le Carré's half-sister Charlotte Cornwell. The novel was adapted in 1984, directed by George Roy Hill and adpated by le Carré and Loring Mandel. It starred Diane Keaton as Charlie, Yorgo Voyagis as Joseph and Klaus Kinski as Kurtz. The film changes Charlie from an English twenty-something to a thirty-ish American. The film was met with divisive reactions.

The series stars Florence Pugh as Charmian "Charlie" Ross, Michael Shannon as Martin Kurtz, Alexander Skarsgård as Gadi Becker, and Charles Dance as Commander Picton. Solid performances were given by the cast. Pugh, especially, lives it up. Unlike Keaton in the 1984 incarnation, Pugh is young and passionate to capture the idealistic actress-turned-spy that le Carré imagined.

Speed, suspense, and surprises, all combine to make The Little Drummer Girl one of those agreeable thrillers that can beguile the idle hours of the television screen. Mystery experts will enjoy the whole thing, I think. Intriguing, complex, and entirely satisfying, Park Chan-wook's version of le Carré's novel succeeds from the strong performance of Florence Pugh in the lead role, who perhaps was perfectly cast. International spy stories are most always good, and this is one of the best, smartly cut, with sufficient humanity. Like a brilliant escape artist, director Park Chan-wook has pulled off that rarest of feats -- the thriller of ideas.

Simon says The Little Drummer Girl (2018) receives:

Also, see my review for The Handmaiden (아가씨).