RED JOAN – Review by MaryAnn Johanson

In May 2000, Joan Stanley (Judi Dench) is arrested by MI5 as a longtime spy for the KGB. Who, this sweet little elderly librarian?! Under interrogation, we get the details in extended flashbacks: From her years as a student at Cambridge in the late 1930s through her work on Britain’s atomic-bomb project during World War II, young Joan (Sophie Cookson) becomes enamored of Marxists, both politically and sexually, via an intense romance with radical Leo (Tom Hughes), and absolutely convinced that the Russians — who were, recall, allies with the West against the Nazis and Japan — needed to be kept up to speed with the bomb development. So she started passing on the scientific secrets she was privy to…

There’s a lot of hot-button stuff going on in Red Joan, which is loosely based on a true story. Marxist oneself or not, it’s difficult to disagree with Joan’s contention that only by sharing the A-bomb technology could such weapons be “defused,” and of course this supposition has been vindicated by the fact that we have not had a nuclear war since. There’s some terrific undercutting of entrenched sexism at play here, including how women make great spies because “nobody would suspect us,” as Joan’s friend and coconspirator Sonya (Tereza Srbova) snarks. Continue reading…