The first thing you need to know going into Red Joan is that the woman on the poster, Dame Judi Dench, is not the star of the film. Young Joan is played by the more vivacious Sophie Cookson in a series of long and awkwardly introduced flashbacks. In Lindsay Shapero’s screenplay, based very, very loosely on the life of British civil servant and KGB informant Melita Norwood, Joan independently hits on the idea of uranium extraction through centrifugal technology. With its pretty but low-budget production values and its wartime research setting, Red Joan may put you in mind of The Imitation Game, which featured another brilliant, under-appreciated Joan, cryptanalyst Joan Clarke, played by Keira Knightley. But Red Joan suffers a little from being twice removed from reality – the source material is the novel of the same name, itself inspired by the actual Norwood affair.

Source: National Post May 03, 2019 18:45 UTC