The Courier: Suspenseful espionage saga

The Courier (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity, brief profanity and fleeting nudity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.14.21

The more I learn about early 1960s Cold War posturing, and Nikita Khrushchev’s volatility, the more frightened I get in hindsight.

 

Thank God, the adults in the room remained calm and rational.

 

Once Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch, right) agrees to become a spy for MI6,
his initial meetings with Soviet military intelligence Col. Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze)
are the stuff of total anxiety. Over time, though, Wynne blossoms and embraces his
clandestine role.

Director Dominic Cooke’s The Courier, opening today at a theater near you, is adapted reasonably faithfully from actual events; the result is an absorbing slice of old-style British espionage cinema. Cooke’s tone, Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography and Suzie Davis’ impeccable production design strongly evoke classics such as The Ipcress File and The Spy Who Came In from the Cold; indeed, at times this film feels as if it had been made during the same era.

 

Events begin in July 1960, when Soviet military intelligence (GRU) Col. Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) — gravely concerned about Khrushchev’s plans regarding Cuba and nuclear missiles — impulsively approaches a pair of American students on Moscow’s Moskvoretsky Bridge; he hands them a packet of documents and insists they be delivered to the American Embassy.

 

The two young men oblige.

 

In London, we meet business consultant Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his wife Sheila (Jessie Buckley). He exudes aptitude and refinement: the sort of cultured, impeccably dressed British chap who’d smoothly navigate a deal over drinks at a gentlemen’s club. 

 

Cumberbatch makes him the epitome of ordinary: happily married, satisfied with his profession, at ease with life. Wynne isn’t overly intelligent, his dyslexia having hampered formal schooling, but he seems to have made peace with that.

 

In short, Wynne is just the sort of fellow who — thanks to his frequent international business trips — would make the ideal undercover agent, because the Soviets wouldn’t look twice at him.

 

Which is precisely what MI6 operative Dickie Franks (Angus Wright) and CIA agent Emily Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan) propose, to the utterly astonished Wynne. More precisely, they want him to act as the courier conduit to the information Penkovsky wishes to supply to Western powers.

 

Franks and Donovan appeal to Wynne’s patriotism, while also stressing how extremely valuable Penkovsky’s intel is.

 

Wynne cooperates; he and Penkovsky subsequently begin a very dangerous game. Their time spent together, during frequent meetings in Moscow, is justified by Penkovsky’s ability to assist with Wynne’s desire to open trade negotiations between several British companies and the Soviets (a perfectly reasonable cover story). 

 

As the months pass, the two men become friends. Wynne realizes, upon meeting Penkovsky’s wife and family, that she has no knowledge of her husband’s espionage work. Back in London, Sheila similarly has no idea what her husband is up to (although, given Buckley’s impressive gift for slyly shaded characters, she clearly suspects him of something).

 

Time passes. As the summer of 1962 concludes, all involved recognize that the situation has become precarious; there’s also a suggestion, in Tom O’Connor’s thoughtful script, that the Soviets may not be as blind to events as everybody assumes.

 

As for what happens next … well, that would be telling.

 

Cumberbatch, ever the chameleon, vanishes behind Wynne’s business suit, coat, hat and carefully clipped mustache. It’s intriguing to note that the man seems to blossom as his clandestine activities continue, as if he enjoys playing a role that allows him to step outside his ordinary life; we sense this from Cumberbatch’s half-smile. Then, too, the warmth of his gaze, when in Penkovsky’s company, bespeaks genuine fondness for this unlikely friend.

 

In deliberate contrast to Wynne’s lack of sophistication, Ninidze’s Penkovsky clearly regards himself as the smartest person in any room. He’s fearless, and exudes confidence: a meticulous planner convinced he can control this situation. But Ninidze also adds an important touch of decency; Penkovsky does not regard himself a traitor, instead viewing his actions as a moral necessity, given Khrushchev’s recklessness.

 

Wright’s Dickie Franks is every inch the classic MI6 handler: blandly impassive, justifying any means to achieve a desired end, coldly maneuvering his “assets” like pawns on a chessboard (and likely willing to sacrifice them just as casually).

 

Penkovsky, Greville and Sheila, and Franks are authentic individuals; Emily Donovan is a fictitious composite of several CIA handlers. (For starters, all upper-echelon CIA officers in the early 1960s were men.) Brosnahan, immediately recognized from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, brings emotion to the mix; unlike her British colleagues, Donovan is passionate, feisty and genuinely concerned about Wynne.

 

She’s also wily, and that’s fun to watch. Mindful of her gender — in this time and place — she manipulates and wheedles. One suspects she excels at planting an excellent suggestion into the mind of a male colleagues, and making him believe that he thought of it himself.

 

Abel Korzeniowski’s lovely, lyrical, waltz-hued orchestral score adds a wistful touch to the film’s gentler moments, and is just as effectively unsettling when matters become tense and suspenseful. 

 

Fans of thoughtful, low-key espionage thrillers will feel right at home here. And there’s no doubt, once this film concludes, that you’ll immediately hit the Internet — as I did — in search of additional information about Oleg Penkovsky and Greville Wynne.

Truth really can be more fascinating than fiction.