Andrew Eaton-Lewis: I’m not sure Tinker Tailor’s version of Britain has much appeal for me either

By ANDREW EATON-LEWIS
Published on Sunday 12 February 2012 12:00

IS TINKER Tailor Soldier Spy a great film or just a great British film?

It has 11 nominations at tonight’s British Academy Film Awards, putting it almost neck and neck with The Artist, a consistent favourite throughout the whole of the movie awards season. But the film was ignored completely at the Golden Globes, and has only had token recognition in the Oscars shortlist – with nominations for two familiar Hollywood names, Gary Oldman (for best actor in a leading role) and Lord Of The Rings composer Howard Shore (for his soundtrack).

That British awards voters are loudly championing the film while Americans have been largely ignoring it is not, it’s reasonable to assume, unconnected. Patriotism is at work here. The question is, how far does that patriotism go? Tinker Tailor is nominated for both Best Film and Outstanding British Film. So fans of the film have a choice; they can vote for Tinker Tailor for Best Film (instead of The Artist, The Descendants, Drive and The Help), and save their Outstanding British Film vote for one of the other deserving British films on offer (My Week With Marilyn, Senna, Shame and We Need To Talk About Kevin). Or, they can vote for it as Outstanding British Film and leave the Best Film category clear for the Americans.

If the latter happens, that’s a sad state of affairs, given the extent to which the Baftas are (as ever) overwhelmingly dominated by American films, albeit with a few nods to smaller, home-grown movies such as Tyrannosaur and Project Nim.

There are, of course, complicated reasons for this, mostly to do with the power of big studios and the dominance of multiplex cinemas, which would require a lot of political stubbornness to fix. It is also arguable that very few films are exclusively British or American anyway (Tinker Tailor’s director Tomas Alfredson is, of course, Swedish). What’s frustrating, though, is the suspicion that Tinker Tailor is only getting award recognition here because the Britain it presents – grubby, mundane, without a royal, a tourist attraction, a foppish gent or Julia Roberts in sight – is a Britain that is of no interest to Americans.

I’m playing devil’s advocate here, a bit. I’m not sure Tinker Tailor’s version of Britain holds much appeal for me either. It’s so overstuffed with dusty, depressed old men that afterwards, rather than pondering political corruption, I just wanted to watch The Inbetweeners Movie again. Speaking of which, why hasn’t that had any nominations?

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