Bridge of Spies 2015

7.3/10. I think I've reached the point where I take the people involved in this film for granted. Steven Spielberg is an all-time great director, who knows how to craft compelling individual scenes and stack them, one on top of the other, until the story emerges. Tom Hanks is an effortlessly great actor, who slips into roles and wrings out the pathos and strength and humanity in anyone he plays. And the Coen Brothers are superlative screenwriters, who examine the character of a man and the way the world works like no others.

But each of these men has plied their trade for so long and so many times that I think I've grown inured to it. I never have a bad reaction to any of the elements. In Bridge of Spies I'm suitably impressed by Spielberg's intimate steadicam capturing the rubble and ruckus of Berlin, or the blinding light behind Donovan and Abel in quiet scenes where they plot their strategy. I'm always pleased to see Hanks shine with subtlety with just a look or a gesture or a quick, almost imperceptible reaction that conveys exactly how his character is feeling. I laugh at an unmistakably absurd Coen Brothers trademark comedy scene featuring Abel's fake family putting on a show for Donovan, or their darker take on the unfair randomness of life that spits us out on different sides of a wall. And yet, I'm just not wowed by it anymore. That's not a problem with anything in these filmmakers' work; it's a problem of familiarity.

In truth, much of Bridge of Spies feels familiar. The first half of the film concerns Hanks's character, insurance lawyers James Donovan, being impressed into service to defend a nigh-confessed Soviet Spy. It tells the story of how despite Donovan's initial reluctance, he starts to see the humanity, the moral equivalence between Abel's service to his country and what an American spy would do for theirs, and he struggles to get Abel due process and something approaching justice, despite threats to his family, pressure from his wife and his employer, and resistance to these ideas from the very judge who's presiding over the case.

It's a solid story, that unspools well and hits the right beats for Donovan's escalating concerns hitting pushback at every turn, but it feels of a piece with similar works of recent vintage, like the man who defended a woman alleged to be involved in Abraham Lincoln's assassination in The Conspirator and the defense of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre in Tom Hooper's John Adams. Again, it's told well enough, and the stakes and theme are crystal clear, but there's nothing especially new or different or overly compelling about it.

The film picks up a bit in the second half when Donovan is again impressed into service, this time as an unofficial (but official) negotiator, sent to Berlin by the CIA to broker the release of an American spy pilot shot down over soviet territory. The interesting monkey wrench in the negotiation is an American student captured by the East Germans, who also want to be involved with this exchange as a way to establish their legitimacy as a country by being seen to sit at the same table as the Americans.

There's an interesting story there, particularly in the way that Donovan feels his way around unfamiliar settings amid the cloak and dagger spytrade in the tatters of Berlin. There's particular intrigue in the way that Donovan juggles his various contacts in Berlin, from the smoke and mirrors of his equally unofficial (but official) Soviet representative, to the harsher, more temperamental East German negotiator that leaves him to spend a night in prison, to his own CIA handlers who gloss over rescuing the student as part of the trade. There's a sense in which the film presents Donovan as presenting the negotiating skills he developed as an insurance lawyer to bear that works in the game of shifting alliances and conflicting priorities that Donovan plays in Berlin.

The film also features are rightfully lauded performance from Mark Rylance as Abel, who carries an understated steadiness to the role. So often the performances that receive attention around awards season conflate "best" with "more." Here, Rylance has zero moments where the tenor of his performance is over the top, or even above a standard speaking voice. There were no tears or screams or physical transformation. Instead, there's just the quiet dignity of a man in impossible circumstances, with only an amusing recurring catchphrase as a hook. That in and of itself is an achievement, and it's nice to see that the performance hasn't been overlooked.

But despite that sterling performance, and the intrigue of the second half of the film, and the somewhat conventional first half of the film, I'm not entire sure what to make of Bridge of Spies. On the surface, the message seems pretty clear -- it's a story about the growth and change in Donovan's perspective when exposed to more of the world than his insurance practice, and of a certain degree of equivalency in how we treat others based on what flag they're serving under.

But when you're trying to parse through a Spielberg film, it's often useful to look at the symbols and motifs that repeat. Two of these repeating motifs implicate the personal journey of Donovan in the film. In the film's opening scene, Donovan expressly disclaims his opposing counsel's references to Donovan's client as "his guy." Donovan makes clear that it's his client, not his "guy," and that it's important to keep a professional distance. But in his negotiation to exchange Abel for two Americans, he consistently refers to each of them as his guy. It's a sign of the way that this has become much more personal to him, that there is an investment in the situation and proximity to these individuals that wasn't there when he was litigating car accidents.

Also, in that same opening scene, Donovan talks about how despite the fact that his client injured five distinct motorists, it's not five incidents, it's one. Then, during the negotiating, he's arguing the same thing, that Abel for the American pilot or Abel for the American student is not a separate series of events, but part of one overall transaction. It's a signifier not just of the many ways in which Donovan's skills as an insurance lawyer are brought to bear in his unexpected second career, but also of the way in which Donovan sees how this is all connected, in a way that gives him an advantage over the USSR, East Germany, and even the CIA, who can each only seem to see their piece of it. He becomes Abel's standing man, the one who is beaten back by that system time and time again and yet wears them down until he finds his way.

The latter two contribute more to the seeming message of the film -- a common humanity shared by individuals on all sides of these conflicts that makes the different ways we treat people based on those divisions, the different kinds of quality of life we allow people to have without care or concern in light of what hat they're wearing, seem absurd. The first is the mirrored scenes of young people climbing over walls, while Donovan looks on from a train. When he sees it Berlin, the young people are brutally shot by their army, while the kids in New York frolic freely. It's a sign not only that the stark differences of how the other half lives is still very much with him, but that these divisions are arbitrary, that we are the same kinds of people doing the same kinds of things no matter where we are or where we're from.

And that's reinforced by the ugly looks Donovan gets on the train after he defends Abel versus the approving looks he gets after brokering the exchange. In each instance, Donovan feels like he's doing the same thing, recognizing the humanity in a system where both sides treat individuals like bargaining chips, assets, and commodities, and trying to vindicate that view, but the way the vanguards of that system, and the public at large view him depends on which side they see him as working for.

At the beginning of Bridge of Spies, Donovan sets out to do his due diligence and defend one of the bad guys. But instead of a evil Soviet sympathizer, he simply finds a man--a man who did the same thing for his country that men do for ours--and he begins to empathize, to see that shared humanity on both sides of the Cold War, to see people climbing over walls on both sides of the divide, and realize how ill-founded those divisions are. There's a familiarity to the presentation, and a certain triteness to the message, but the film accomplishes what it sets out to do, and that message, hoary though it may be, comes through loud and clear.

This is really two movies in one.

On one hand you have a principled attorney defending the equivalent of a terrorist today --- namely a soviet spy at the height of the Cold War. And this attorney does his best to uphold the principle of a fair trail, even for people intent on destroying the very way of life that affords hm such a principled defense. Then, as now, the principled argument loses out to fear. But it is most satisfying to see a man with principles standing on them, no matter the cost. I suppose we see two such men. One is the attorney. The other is the soviet spy: for he doesn't once renounce his loyalty to his country, despite the promise of getting to live in exchange for betraying his country. In fact, this soviet spy is depicted as a likeable character in this movie, precisely because he stands on principle, like his attorney.

On the other hand you have a classic spy story. The same attorney who unsuccessfully defended the spy is then charged with negotiating an exchange of this same spy for an American one shot down over Russia. The attorney sweetens the deal for the Americans when he also manages the release of an American student caught by the East Germans on the wrong side of the wall when it went up.

The first story is much better than the second one.