While watching the film, my feelings toward it was like a pendulum, swinging from 'This is a well crafted film' to 'this is nothing more than left wing propaganda'. My research after the film allowed me to settle for the latter.
I'll start with the positives. For most part, you can't fault the performances, especially from our two Joans - Cookson is wonderful and Dench reliably delivers. It was evocative of the planned back story for her M in Skyfall before it was shelved in favour of the final product, but I digress.
Red Joan is structurally sound. The narrative evolves at a beautiful pace and never did it lag. I believed the character and story development (except perhaps the actions of one male character toward the end). The technical aspects were beautiful too - the cinematography, the music and art direction all very palatable. Which is why it's so disappointing that the politics bogs this down to glossy revisionist propaganda.
The sell is that the Cold War hinged on this one woman's decision to pass atomic research over to the Russians in the hopes it will deter the superpowers from ever claiming lives, and older Joan claims that WWIII was averted because of her actions. A bit of a stretch, but when the film opens with 'inspired by a true story', you believe the basic plot points are what you get. The closing moments in the film highlight that Joan didn't exist, and in fact it was a Melita Norwood who passed such research to the Russians. She was a staunch communist who wholeheartedly believed in the ideology that claimed millions more lives than Hitler. In turn, the film amps up the dissonance Joan has between East vs West, which creates a much more sympathetic character, but glosses over the genocidal regime in Russia. Instead, the film focuses on an anti-US rhetoric and glamourises left wing ideology. Given how Joan takes refuge in Australia, one can interpret her actions are naive mistakes from a girl who was swept away by love, which would be a much easier pill to swallow. However, given the film ends on the brief information surrounding Melita's story, it strongly suggests a desire to sensationalise Melita's life and allegiance to Moscow, which is far from heroic and needn't be celebrated. Explored, perhaps from a different point of view, but certainly not honoured.
