Post by pimpinainteasy on Jan 5, 2019 6:31:24 GMT
I liked the book by GRAHAM GREENE a lot. I felt like the film failed to capture all the wistful themes in the book. If i was someone who had not read the book, I would have been unable to appreciate it completely. The book was one of Greene's "entertainments". The film Our Man in Havana is a satirical spy movie set in Havana during the cold war. British influence over the rest of the world is on the wane. An alcoholic British expatriate Jim Wormold - who owns a shop that sells vacuum cleaners is hired by a British intelligence agency as their man (spy) in Havana.
The main character Wormold is a lot like Henry Scobie in Greene's The Heart of the Matter. He is a middle aged man who does not know what he is to do with the rest of his life. How will he go on? How will he fund the exorbitant lifestyle of his Catholic daughter Milly? He drifts through life, drinking daiquiris with another dejected British expatriate Dr. Hasselbacher at Havana's numerous bars. But when he is assigned the job of a spy by Hawthorne (the British intelligence agent who arrives as a customer at Wormold's shop), there is something to do. He begins to make money. He makes up fake events and people in his dispatches to the intelligence agency. But then his dispatches begin to come true.
Wormold's predicament is quite depressing. It is a predicament that most of us would have faced at some point in our lives - especially the middle aged. What are we to do with our lives? How are we to go on in this modern world? I recently watched Trainspotting 2 and the middle aged Mark Renton who has just had a heart surgery has the same question - "They told me I am going to be allright for the next thirty years but what they did not tell me was what I'm supposed to do with those thirty years."
But the film failed to capture all the above elements which were there in the book. Directed by Carol Reed, it does work as a film of place and a reasonably good spy thriller. The sheer absurdity of the intelligence agencies activities is captured perfectly by Greene especially in the scenes towards the end where Wormold is bestowed with a teaching post at the agency despite him running circles around them.
(7.5/10)
The main character Wormold is a lot like Henry Scobie in Greene's The Heart of the Matter. He is a middle aged man who does not know what he is to do with the rest of his life. How will he go on? How will he fund the exorbitant lifestyle of his Catholic daughter Milly? He drifts through life, drinking daiquiris with another dejected British expatriate Dr. Hasselbacher at Havana's numerous bars. But when he is assigned the job of a spy by Hawthorne (the British intelligence agent who arrives as a customer at Wormold's shop), there is something to do. He begins to make money. He makes up fake events and people in his dispatches to the intelligence agency. But then his dispatches begin to come true.
Wormold's predicament is quite depressing. It is a predicament that most of us would have faced at some point in our lives - especially the middle aged. What are we to do with our lives? How are we to go on in this modern world? I recently watched Trainspotting 2 and the middle aged Mark Renton who has just had a heart surgery has the same question - "They told me I am going to be allright for the next thirty years but what they did not tell me was what I'm supposed to do with those thirty years."
But the film failed to capture all the above elements which were there in the book. Directed by Carol Reed, it does work as a film of place and a reasonably good spy thriller. The sheer absurdity of the intelligence agencies activities is captured perfectly by Greene especially in the scenes towards the end where Wormold is bestowed with a teaching post at the agency despite him running circles around them.
I felt a distance between me and the actors. I could not really identify with any of them. I guess this is a problem if you have already read the book and formed ideas about how the characters should look and speak.
The film does look great in pristine Blu ray.
(7.5/10)
