Bridge of Spies

Four Stars (out of four)

So, this is a movie I have been eagerly anticipating.  It's funny how things can work out sometimes.  A movie that is about the Cold War; and with the way current events are shaping up in Syria and Ukraine and with Putin pushing a very nationalistic agenda, we may be seeing a return to those days much earlier than any of us thought.  I grew up during the Cold War, long after these events took place, but not so much so to remember and appreciate the context this movie was steeped in.  And, it is dead on.  To younger audiences that were born in the 80's, it may seem inconceivable how the geopolitical dynamics played out then, but the movie perfectly captures these dynamics perfectly.

The movie is based on real events.  After Soviet spy Rudolph Abel (played very mensch-like by Mark Rylance), is arrested, an insurance lawyer, James Donovan (Tom Hanks), is appointed as his attorney to demonstrate to the USSR that Abel will get a fair trial, thus showing our moral mettle.  After taking the case to the Supreme Court, Abel unsurprisingly gets a very stiff sentence.  Meanwhile, U2 pilot Gary Powers is shot down over the USSR and gets a similar stiff sentence from the Soviets.  People from both sides are screaming for blood and the mood on both sides of the world is tense.  Donovan is sent to East Germany as a private citizen to negotiate a trade.  Since the trade can't be acknowledged by either government, there is a lot of skullduggery going on.  In the meantime, a US graduate student is arrested in East Berlin, further complicating the matter because the German Democratic Republic (the GDR or East Germany) wants to score points with the USSR by getting their man back and by stressing to the US that the GDR is not a doormat for the USSR.  Donovan decides to get both US citizens released and eventually does.

The reason I gave the ending away is that it is all a matter of historical record and isn't what the movie is really about.  It is about the context of the events in question, public sentiment on both sides, and most interestingly, the geopolitical power dynamics at a crucial point in world history.  It was incredible to watch, particularly in regards to the GDR.  The movie takes place just as the Berlin Wall was going up, and for those of us born later in the Cold War, it is easy to forget that Germany was caught in the middle of all this, shortly after losing WWII.  They didn't necessarily like the Soviets, but they had little control over their fate because of the war they started recently ended in defeat.  While they had to accept their lot in a much grander drama that overshadowed them, they would not go quietly.  The GDR makes the negotiations difficult until the movie implied that the Soviets leaned on them.  In this, we see the beginning of the real subjugation of East Germany under the Soviet yoke.  Essentially, we see the Soviets telling the GDR they are no longer a sovereign nation.  As Orwell said after the uprising in his book Animal Farm, "Of course all animals are equal.  Just some are more equal than others.". All of this is played out in microcosm through this spy exchange, and would establish a new world order that arguably still exists today.  It is a brilliant, yet understated presentation on how the Old World order died, a final casualty of WWII and marked the ascension of the US role in world affairs from then on.

But the movie is more than that.  It also brilliantly portrays the US/USSR battle of ideas/moral codes and our mutual distrust.  It is also quick to point out the hatred between us was very real, but both sides understood the consequences of missteps.  It portrays the mutual animosity and the quid pro quo nature that dominates our relationship even today.  And considering Russia's new-found belligerent ambitions to reclaim the prestige they lost in the 1990's, we may be traveling down the road portrayed in this film again for a new generation.

As I said, this is not a particularly dramatic film, but one of subtlety and nuance.  At first, I was underwhelmed, as Spielberg's movies tend to be bombastic.  But as I think more and more about what I saw, the more I see that it is fantastic story, penned by the Coen brothers of Fargo and No Country for Old Men.  The fact the story is true is icing on the cake.   This movie is measured, takes its time to highlight the details.  The details are all-important here, so it is not required for the movie to lambaste us.  This is truly an adult, intelligent film; a species of growing rarity in Hollywood.  It is movies like this that remind me as to why I still love  them.  Vacuous crap like The Lego Movie makes me despair, but movies like this restore my faith in the state of today's storytelling.  Leave the kids at home and see this.  Or bring them to learn something about where we have been and maybe where we are going.