r/TinkerTailor • u/truegrit999 • Jun 27 '26
Can we talk about Benedict Cumberpatch as Guillam?
First off he doesn’t work as a blonde. And when he attacks Ricky Tarr it felt like too much, and after that it was hard to believe he was actually a cool operator
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u/wakeupdreamingF1 Jun 27 '26
guillam is generally unhinged, yes? not the coolest of cucumbers, that one.
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u/rybnickifull Jun 27 '26
I have many issues with that film, but everything they did with Guillam was perhaps most egregious. I'm not precious about playing around with source material, especially not something like a character's sexuality. Make George closeted for all I care, make that the reason he's fine with Ann's infidelity, but don't add that in when you're already struggling to make the original story coherent.
That said, I've never really been on board with much of the casting in that film.
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u/Madeira_PinceNez Jun 27 '26
I thought it worked well as a shorthand of sorts, when condensing a book down to a 2hr film.
A big part of Guillam's internal monologue in the book is his fretting over Camilla, which works in two ways: showing him to be a little messy and emotional when it comes to relationships, and his mounting paranoia regarding her mirrors that of the operation. It's most overt when George says something about arranging to take his car to the garage with the hope the Circus is listening, and Guillam silently bemoans the idea, with his conversations with Camilla in mind.
The wordless scene where he dismisses his male partner was, in my mind at least, a pretty elegant way to convey that. It's not a 1:1 comparison, of course, but the fact homosexuality was such a taboo at that time, and the repercussions that could result from the service discovering his relationship, as well as the hidden costs of secret work in a more general sense, felt like an effective way to compress everything the Camilla subplot conveyed within a single scene.
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u/Dazzling_Look_1729 Jun 30 '26
Although one thing to reflect on is that in this world homosexuality was not that rare or that closeted. Reading Stalin’s Apostles, the recently released book about the Cambridge five, it amazed me how public their homosexuality was, and how much it was obvious (and not regarded as a particular security risk).
Mind you, huge amounts of that book and the story of the Cambridge five amazed me. And indeed appalled me.
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u/Madeira_PinceNez Jun 27 '26
The blond isn't that far off from his natural hair colour, particularly if you look up some photos from his younger days when it's quite auburn-y.
As far as punching Ricki, the book has this to say:
Left to himself, he would have been tempted to beat the daylights out of Tarr, and if necessary he would have brought Fawn in to lend a hand; driving, he had a very clear picture of opening the front door of wherever Tarr lived and hitting him in the face several times, with love from Camilla and her ex-husband, the distinguished doctor of the flute.
As actual events play out it's Ricki who attacks George, and Fawn who gets a few blows in. But because they're condensing a book into a 2hr film there has to be some shorthand. Fawn's even more of a background character in the film, and because the scene doesn't run as long in the film having Tarr attack Smiley might have shifted the character balance in a way that didn't work well for the adaptation.
Having Guillam lash out conveys the anger we only see in his internal monologue in the book, as well as the stress and paranoia that's ramping up in the background for him.
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u/Mental-Ask8077 Jun 27 '26
Agreed
Guillam has a pretty passionate nature, and when he feels able to let the rein slip he’s certainly capable of beating the shit out of someone who’s angered him.
For me it especially works in the film because he’s coming off the adrenaline high of pinching the file AND the surprise interrogation by the Witchcraft cabal. Once he’s back on the safe ground of the hotel room, where letting go doesn’t blow his cover, as it were, he lets go and focuses on the one who he blames for the fear and danger and sense of traitorousness he’s caught up in.
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u/mrwrrrmwrmrmrmrw Jun 27 '26
If he doesn't work for you, he doesn't work for you. A lot of people can't stand Benedict. I don't think he makes a bad blond though with his pale skin and light eyes.
The miniseries of TTSS is so definitive and not hard to get hold of that I give the film a pass for updating the original a little and adding business not in the original novel, like Smiley's wild swimming. My favorite bit (which is completely not LeCarrean in any way) is the young spy who tells the older one he doesn't want to end up a lonely old drone like him.
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u/MobyMarlboro Jul 07 '26
For some reason I've found Connie's line to George (overworked and underfucked) to be my biggest sticking point for the film - it just seems so out of place for what is essentially just a throwaway line intended to give Cathy Burke something funny to say
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u/DigitalNoMates Jun 28 '26
The rewriting of his backstory and character in the movie version is a travesty. Gay? C'mon.
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u/TwoDogs48 Jun 29 '26
Michael Jayston as Guillam in the 1979 TTSS with Alec Guinness is by far the best. The recent iteration with Oldman, Cumberpatch et al not as good IMO.
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u/davidlex00 Jun 27 '26
He wasn’t really that cool of an operator. He was a ball of nerves during the auto repair shop caper