Critic Reviews

The director’s excitement crosses over for the audience. Like many of le Carré’s other international relations studies, The Little Drummer Girl can be as burdened by specifics; however, this limited series finds inventive and eye-catching ways to convey its spycraft. Despite all the lies, games, performances, and plays, these characters have an authenticity that guts you.

The results, at least based on the two episodes newly premiered at the London Film Festival, are pretty damn fabulous. ... The first two episodes of Michael Lesslie and Claire Wilson’s tart teleplay patiently spin out revelations of false identity and true political motivation, so that we might fall as hard Charlie does for Becker’s inscrutable, self-professedly “dodgy” charms, before doubling back with some withheld secrets of her own.

The Little Drummer Girl prefers to gloss over the messy complexities of Middle Eastern politics entirely, enamored as it is with the intimate realm of romance and the intellectual realm of ethics and identity. Combined, they produce something that’s a bit sluggish as a spy story, but sublime as a work of auteurist art.

Ambiguities and romantic complications abound as Pugh keeps us guessing where Charlie's loyalties will ultimately lie. [12-25 Nov 2018, p.11]

It’s Pugh who really carries the miniseries with her boldness and charm, fully commanding the screen and giving a deeply natural and genuine performance as an amateur spy caught between two worlds.

The miniseries capitalizes on the format to flesh out the characters, without sacrificing tension or pace.

Park and this series really blur the lines between actress, spy, and terrorist, noting how much all three rely on scripted narratives to accomplish their goals. It’s another high-profile mini-series that rewards the patient, and further proof of its director’s international importance.

It won’t please every Le Carré fan, and it doesn’t do justice--doesn’t try to do justice, really--to one important aspect of his story, regarding the emotional fallout for the civilian once she’s gone all the way into the spies’ world. Somewhat perversely, given its subject, it’s not an acting showcase--it’s bound together by Park’s style and technique, and no performer stands out like Diane Keaton did in Hill’s film (she was the only thing worth watching). But on its own terms, this Little Drummer Girl is a success.

I found her [Florence Pugh as Charlie] extremely appealing and am looking forward to seeing her in whatever she does next (including Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women), even though her spirited sanity undermines the tension around her character’s psychological torment. Pugh is helped in all of this by the script.

While Pugh, Skarsgard and Shannon hit vastly different emotional notes, each finds the shadings and conflicts that make these characters more and more compelling as the plot gets thicker, the players dig deeper and the stakes get higher. It is, Pugh, however, who makes the grandest impression in what is both a star and star-making turn. You might find yourself quibbling with some of Park’s direction, but never with Pugh’s performance.