A quick nip to Derby Quad after work enabled me to take in a superior French thriller and get home in time for The Apprentice. Wow I lead the high life, don't I?
Actually, it was pretty good drama on both counts.
Let's cast Lord Sugar aside and get on with a dissection of this excellent piece of work by director Christian Carion.
This is a story based loosely on the real tale of a KGB agent whose link-up with the French exposed all of the pro-Soviets working in senior scientific or industrial roles in the west.
The discovery had a significant effect on the future of the Soviet system.
We start at the point that the KGB man (Emir Kusturica) is linking up to a French engineer (Guillaume Canet) who is reticently passing secrets to his government.
In turn, French president Francois Mitterrand (Philippe Magnan) sees that passing on this information will thaw relations with Ronald Reagan (Fred Ward)
The pressure on Canet's character is almost tangible. He is torn between his critical role in world politics and the fear that he is endangering his wife and two young children.
"I married an engineer not James Bond!'' she proclaims, when he reveals a bit of his hand.
The same applies for a different reason to the Russian informant, whose family life is also in the spotlight.
Farewell is a thing of beauty. It gives a super representation of life in the early 1980s, particularly austere Moscow before Perestroika.
It is also a subtle and intelligent movie.
Its lead characters have real depth and Kusturica and Canet ooze both determination and vulnerability.
There are also a bag of interesting cameos by the likes of Willem Dafoe, David Soul and, especially Fred Ward, who plays Reagan.
Anyone who spots Diane Kruger deserves a bonus Mars bar.
But while it is good, Farewell does not stand up to comparisons critics have made to Tell No One and The Lives Of Others.
It may be because of a lack of a significant soundtrack but there just wasn't the same tension as in those two classics.
But it is still worth a hearty recommendation and 8/10.
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