Themes: Behind the Iron Curtain, Interracial/Cross-Cultural Romance
Main Cast: Sean Connery, Michelle Pfeiffer, Roy Scheider, James Fox, Klaus Maria Brandauer, John Mahoney
Release Year: 1990
Country: US
Run Time: 122 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
"Barley" Scott Blair (Sean Connery) is an alcoholic book editor from a bargain-basement publishing house in Great Britain who'd rather be drinking in Lisbon than attending a book dealers' show in Russia. So he's surprised when a CIA agent (Mac McDonald) pulls him from his boozy holiday. It seems that the CIA has through a book show intermediary received a package from a Russian book editor named Katya (Michelle Pfeiffer) containing amazingly detailed notebooks written by a cynical Russian physicist named "Dante" (Klaus-Maria Brandauer). The notebooks show that Russia's nuclear threat is a joke: Russian rockets "suck instead of blow...and can't hit Nevada on a clear day," in the acerbic words of CIA Agent Russell Sheridan (Roy Scheider). But why is Dante sending the notebooks to Blair? How shall the Western world respond to what could be the end of the nuclear arms race? Blair gets drafted by a British Secret Service agent (James Fox) to go to the new Russia to meet Katya. He must see whether the new Russia is still immersed in the old Cold War and whether the notebooks are genuine or another deadly chapter in the war of the spies. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide
Review
Based on the novel by master British spy novelist John Le Carre, The Russia House is as classy, smooth, and elegant as the jazz score Jerry Goldsmith wrote for it, which features the saxophone strains of Branford Marsalis. Director Fred Schepisi shot the film in several Russian cities which gives it a sumptuous palate and corresponds with the lush ironies and scope of Tom Stoppard's script. Schepisi and Stoppard draw parallels in the film between sex and spying, making you wonder exactly who is doing it to whom, but they do it with none of the vulgar humor John Boorman later used to good but obvious effect in The Tailor of Panama. If anything, The Russia House is supposed to be a love story, but there's a certain distance between Connery and Pfeiffer that makes the romance the film's least convincing aspect. The better scenes concern the spying, with Fox and Scheider displaying better chemistry than Connery and Pfeiffer. Fox gives his role an understated dignity and idealistic grace that contrasts nicely with Scheider's bluntness and ersatz vulgarity. The film also features strong supporting work from John Mahoney, the late J.T. Walsh, the director Ken Russell, and Klaus-Maria Brandauer as the Russian scientist named Dante. In two sharp scenes, Brandauer effectively conveys the world-weariness and almost desperate need for redemption that would force a man to commit treason to escape from a moral hell that would rival that of his namesake. Like Presumed Innocent, which was also released in 1990, The Russia House is the work of a great director, writer, and cast turning a fine novel into a very good and serious film. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide
Bartholomew "Barley" Scott Blair runs a British publishing firm. On a business trip to Moscow, he attends a retreat with writers and artists near Peredelkino where much drinking is done. Barley speaks of an inevitable New World Order on its way and an end to tension with the West.
Attentively listening is a man called "Dante," who wants to be convinced that Barley means what he says. Dante, it turns out, has secretly written a book about the Soviet Union's true nuclear missile capabilities.
At a sales fair, a Russian woman, Katya, cannot locate Barley, so she asks Niki Landau, another publishing company's representative, to pass along a very important manuscript. Niki sneaks a look at the book and delivers it to British government authorities rather than take it to Barley.
British intelligence agents from a specific branch nicknamed "the Russia house" and CIA agents from America promptly summon Blair and request his help. Their plan is to give him some fundamental training as a spy, then send him to the USSR in an attempt to arrange a personal meeting with Dante, a brilliant scientist whose actual name is Yakov.
He reluctantly agrees and is briefed by Ned, his British contact. Barley is screened by American military and government officials. Ned's counterpart in the U.S., Russell, ultimately comes to London to monitor Barley's progress.
Barley travels to Moscow, where upon meeting Katya, he is instantly smitten. She takes a liking to him, too, but having been taught to be suspicious asks Barley point-blank if he is a spy. He says no.
When he finally is able to meet with Dante/Yakov one-on-one, Barley explains that the sensitive manuscript is now in the hands of British and American authorities. Yakov feels betrayed, but Barley convinces him that the book can still be published, which was the author's objective in the first place.
Barley and Katya continue to fear that they, and particularly Yakov, could be under KGB observation. A series of questions is designed to verify the facts presented in the book, but Yakov vanishes and is said to be gravely ill. Allowed a phone call, he uses a code word that lets Katya know he has been captured and her life is also in great danger.
Now in love with her, Barley confesses the truth and hatches a plan to help her and her family escape. Barley enters a building and never comes out, much to the consternation of British and American authorities. He has traded the list of questions to the Russians in exchange for the freedom of Katya's family. He tells the British and Americans it might be unfair, but as he writes to Ned: "That's what you get for opening other people's mail."
He waits in Lisbon for a ship to dock that brings Katya and her family to him to begin a new life.
