Miscasting

Oh, please. The series was expertly cast, the film--with the possible exception of Oldman--was largely forgettable in its casting. Firth was all wrong as Haydon, Cumberbach was his usual "man, I'm so intense" void as Guillam (I won't even mention the silly and irrelevant decision to make Guillam a homosexual), Toby Jones--whom I like a lot--came off in the film looking as if he were playing a mad scientist rather than the head of British Intelligence. The others were so blah, that, talking about the film recently, I had to go and look up many of their names, because I'd completely forgotten everything about their performances, and even what they looked like.

(And with Prideaux and Connie, you've just named two of the best casting choices in the series.)

I agree with those who find the film ultra weak. As for the "mis-casting", if you like the film characters better, then so be it, but it is no doubt that the BBC's versions of these characters are much closer to what the book intended them to be.

The Comparison that springs to the top of my list:

Hywell Bennett as Rick Tarri never particularly impressed me as some super actor -- just a n actor doing his job. But he blows Tom Hardy's Ricki Tarr out of the water. Bennett's Tarr is intense and a bit scary, and (if the book is any guide) should be exactly that. Tom Hardy is just a mope ... to such an extent that your jaw drops as you ask yourself .... Is this what they wanted? Did they do this on purpose?

I've seen the movie twice now, and while I admit it's much better than what I anticipated in this particular age of filmmaking, it doesn't do justice to the great source material. And in comparison, it's nowhere near as accomplished as the series.

One thing I have to give the movie credit for is the photography and the atmosphere. It really feels as bleak as the era and people it's supposed to be portraying. But other than that, it's weak on many levels.

The actors aren't given much of a chance to display their talent. To be fair, the running time was insufficient for the material. But still, John Hurt (who in my opinion would've been a better Control than Alexander Knox) had only one or two scenes where he uttered a word. The lady who played Connie in the movie was much closer to the description in the book. But she did not display any of the bitterness that her character is supposed to be feeling.

Guillam, a major character who is doing all the spy work and is supposed to be the action man of the story, is completely lost in Cumberbatch. I was surprised that even after my second viewing, I remembered nothing at all about the performance. I blame this on the producer and the director, the two people that shape the final look of the film. Not only is the character invisible in the film, but he's also portrayed like a whiny, clueless man who can't possibly be Smiley's right hand man.

On paper, Tom Hardy was a good choice for the role I guess, but his performance here is very average. He doesn't stand out the way Bennett did. And he should've been oozing some sort of energy, the viewer should have felt that even when he was joking and trying to be cute, this guy could be dangerous. But no, not in the movie.

I'm sure I've written in another topic, that I think the TV Irina is very attractive, intriguing and feminine. The movie Irina is prettier, but nothing stands out about her. She looks just like any other model we see everywhere: perfect face, but arousing no feelings whatsoever. The TV Irina was a perfect fit in that sense: not just another pretty face, but a mysterious woman with a vulnerability and charm that would attract even a cold, unemotional spy.

Alleline and the inner circle are the characters that suffer most from the short running time. There is no depth to any of them. The TV series had the luxury of giving those 20-minute interview scenes with Smiley and each of them separately, fleshing out their personalities and motivations.

And of course the happy, jingle bells-y final scene ruins whatever the movie achieved up to that point. Feels totally wrong.

I don't blame the actors, particularly Oldman and Hurt. They're among the best today, and the others are pretty good actors, I've seen some of them in other movies giving wonderful performances. I can't blame the source material either, of course. But somewhere along the production, something messed up. Perhaps they should've been content to make it a 3-hour film, demanding the audience to spare an extra hour and rewarding them for it.

Never be complete.

I can only agree with the general feeling on this thread that the TV version was cast better (and/or the cast was directed better).

Of course once you're very familiar with one take on a character it's very difficult to accept anything else as valid, and I've only read the book once a long time ago so I don't know how faithfully eg Connie is represented in each.

But regardless, Beryl Reid seemed to me to present a very poignant and memorable character. Kathy Burke played Kathy Burke.

It's a while since I watched the film – for one thing it was just too annoying to watch more than a couple of times – but in general the TV version sets high standards which the film simply failed to challenge for one reason or another.

The film just doesn't give enough time to Ricki and Irina for them to develop in the way that they do in the series. Still, it's hard to imagine Hardy matching Bennett's portrayal of Tarr's essential smirking nastiness – and that surely loses one of the themes of Le Carré's plot which is the tension between trying to uphold moral principles whilst relying on useful amoral scum. It's even harder to imagine Svetlana Khodchenkova doing a comparable job to Susan Kodicek in capturing Irina's disillusionment, desperation, faith, dignity and amusement.

I agree. The selection for Jim Prideaux was much better in the film version. Also, Ricki Tarr in the BBC version was unnecessarily intense. He didn't look like the type who would seduce Boris' common-law wife. As for Irina in the BBC version, please spare me. What does Ricki see in her? And what's this Scotland being the Garden of Eden? As for Connie Sachs in both the film and BBC, please spare me again.