Spying the Oscar

Bridge of Spies is surprising on a number of counts, not the least of which is that it doesn’t overplay the twists and surprises that you more or less expect in a cinematic history lesson directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks.

For me, the biggest and best of those surprises has to do with the emotional power of a couple of the central characterizations in a sprawling drama that is part espionage movie, part courtroom/legal drama, part memoir and Cold War period piece. That the picture is able to keep that assortment of genres working in full, entertaining concert throughout its 142-minute running time is itself something of a surprise, and the growing bond between two characters in particular is the crucial ingredient for all that as well.

James Donovan (Hanks) is an insurance lawyer who is recruited by U.S. government agents (the CIA, mainly) to act as defense lawyer for a man accused (circa 1957) of spying for the U.S.S.R. The accused is one Rudolf Abel (a superb Mark Rylance), a solitary painter with a Russian passport and the barest hint of a Scottish accent in his spoken English.

The government wants nothing more than the pretense of a “fair trial,” but the earnest Donovan insists that the accused should be given a full and proper defense even if the guilty verdict is a more or less foregone conclusion. The trial is a story in itself, but it’s only the beginning in Bridge of Spies.

In the sentencing phase of Abel’s trial, Donovan raises the possibility of an exchange between the two countries of condemned spies at some time in the future. The film has already begun to follow the case of Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell), pilot of a U-2 spy plane whose name made headlines worldwide when he was shot down over Soviet territory.

Donovan serves as the key intermediary in an exchange of Abel for Powers, and in the process of those strangely fraught negotiations takes up the cause of a U.S. student, Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers), who was arrested in East Berlin just as the newly erected Berlin Wall was being closed off.

Donovan’s heroic combination of ethical integrity and shrewdly political maneuvering is played with characteristically understated dignity by Hanks, and Rylance’s wonderfully minimalist rendering of Abel’s own courage and integrity gets even more out of the deadpan understatement that seems central to the whole production. Both of them should get serious attention from the Oscars.

Apart from those two, most of the movie is a matter of straight-ahead advancement of a complicated historical narrative. Even with a big cast that includes Amy Ryan and Alan Alda, generic efficiency marks most of movie’s performances. The one small exception to that may be a CIA agent played by Scott Shepherd as a man working very hard to maintain a blank, purely professional mien while dealing with the likes of James Donovan.