Amazon.com: Red Joan [DVD] [2019] : Movies & TV

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Product Description

Synopsis:

Based on Jennie Rooney’s best-selling novel of the same name.

The year is 2000 and Joan Stanley is living in contented retirement in suburbia at the turn of the millennium. Her tranquil life is suddenly disrupted when she’s arrested by MI5 and accused of providing intelligence to Communist Russia.

Cut to 1938 where Joan is a Cambridge physics student who falls for young communist Leo Galich and through him, begins to see the world in a new light.

Working at a top-secret nuclear research facility during WWII, Joan comes to the realisation that the world is on the brink of mutually assured destruction. Confronted with an impossible question - what price would you pay for peace? - Joan must choose between betraying her country and loved ones, or saving them.

Product details

Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.78:1
Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.48 x 5.43 x 0.71 inches; 3.35 Ounces
Media Format ‏ : ‎ PAL
Release date ‏ : ‎ December 29, 2022
Language ‏ : ‎ English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Studio ‏ : ‎ Lionsgate Home Entertainment
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07QH7G3JG

Customer Reviews:
3,010 ratings

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5 star		61%
4 star		20%
3 star		12%
2 star		4%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from the United States

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RJG

good movie

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 14, 2022

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very interesting and true story.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 5, 2022

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I like movies based upon true events; especially, if it has to do with espionage. From the earliest start it was easy to tell she was being groomed for what was about to take place. The movie painstakingly revealed how meticulously it was done. It was a little slow at times. About halfway through the movie it seemed to change. A different focus maybe, not sure. Either way it was worth watching. It reveals the peril of an idealist. In this day and time, we can see the effects it can have on the future.

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MsPea

Slow moving, but Interesting (review contains spoilers)

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 16, 2019

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Joan defended her actions by claiming that she was doing it for the right reason: to prevent further war. She explained that if Russia and the West both had the capability to destroy each other, neither would use it. She insisted that history has proved her right. Which raises the question: if you commit a crime for a good, even a noble reason, are you absolved from blame? Joan seemed to think so. Judy Dench plays the title role, but she is actually on screen only for a brief time, since the story is told in flashbacks. Sophie Cookson, the actress that plays young Joan is very good. Tom Hughes, who plays Leo, I find a very annoying actor. He played Prince Albert in the Victoria series and drove me crazy. He is an actor who seems to think that speaking in a whispery voice lends drama to his acting. Or maybe he does it for some other reason, but the whispering of dialog is very strange. All the other actors speak normally and he uses this strange voice for some reason. It's a popular technique with actors these days--I notice Nicole Kidman does it to. Anyway, back to the movie ... a little slow moving. But, it held my interest.

27 people found this helpful

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The Tally Ho

Review without Spoiler - Pros & Cons

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 27, 2020

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Red Joan (2018) is a British spy drama film directed by Trevor Nunn & stars Sophie Cookson, Stephen Campbell Moore, Tom Hughes, Ben Miles, Nina Sosanya, Tereza Srbova, & Judi Dench. The film is a dramatised inspiration on the story of Melita Norwood. Here are the pros & cons of this film as I see it, I hope this helps you.
Pros:
1. Sophie Cookson, the main star of this film, does a fine job acting her part
2. Overall a good story that makes you think if you are open to it
Cons:
1. Cinematography is just so-so, nothing to write home about in this department
2. Very loosely based on the real story of Melita Norwood, if that is what you are looking for you may want to read the book, The Mitrokhin Archive: The K.G.B. in Europe and the West (1999)

One person found this helpful

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eomer

Fiction not Fact but Great Acting

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 14, 2019

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This film claimed to be based on a true story, that of the British Soviet spy, Melita Norwood. This is a travesty, the film diverges so far from the truth, it would be more accurate to class it as fiction. In the film, the protagonist comes to the Communist cause at Cambridge University, in reality Norwood grew up in a politicized family and likely come to that cause far earlier. Unlike her portrayal, she never attended Cambridge and she wasn't a scholar of physics. She actually attended University College Southampton where she studied Latin and Logic. Her espionage was done not as as a brilliant researcher in Physics but as a secretary. When as an older woman her spying activities were discovered, she was not defended by a son, a noted QC who went through a crisis of conscience before deciding to defend his mother. Rather, she was not defended by her son. Finally, she did not spy to prevent the Super powers using of the bomb: she claimed she did so "to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had, at great cost, given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good education and a health service."

I rated the film at 3 stars because Dame Judy Dench gave such a superb performance and it was a interesting story. I would highly recommend it to those who enjoy quality drama based on fiction rather than factual events.

3 people found this helpful

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Timothy Bradford

Worth the watch.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 14, 2020

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I never give a movie 5 stars unless it's something like Star Wars, Back To The Future, The Goonies, or something like that, but this had only one other rating of 2 stars and it was definitely better than that (3.5-4) so because the average of 2 and 5 make 3.5, there it is. This was a good movie to watch and the other critic complained that it needed more espionage and less personal story...well, there was espionage throughout, you never get a break from it and as far as too personal? Well what is espionage if not personal. It was a refreshing take on the same old spy story and interesting to see how and why someone does something murky and betraying for what they believe are the right reasons...and it's not what you'd think. Watch it. You'll like it, I promise. Post Script- Thanks be to God it wasn't the same old thing.

9 people found this helpful

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margaret wri :) t

Interesting. Based on a true story.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 11, 2021

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Great acting of course, engaging story. However, it appeared the traitor was interpreted as a hero. Betraying ones country is not heroic. It was educational to the viewer to experience the manipulation of a young woman by corrupt people. The traitor convinced herself she was saving the world by betraying her country feeding her own ego. I would watch it again.

2 people found this helpful

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The Paratrooper

Real History

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 6, 2020

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If you lived during the "Cold War" you will remember how many times we came close to self destruction. You will remember the Drills, Fallout Shelters and Real Fear. This Woman did what she thought was right, not for her Country but for the World. She was right in the end, we never had that War. If we had less than 1/5 of you would be alive. I may not agree with what she did but maybe...just maybe we all should do what is right, not for our Country, Our Political Party or God but for the World, for each other. lest try that and see how it goes. I give the movie 5 Stars for the message it sends. "Do what is Right for the World.!"

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

rbmusicman/and/movie-fan'

TRAITOR OR PEACEMAKER ?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 19, 2019

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The film loosely based on the true Melita Norwood story...
After being widowed for several years Joan (Judi Dench) who these days lovingly tends
her garden suddenly finds herself linked with what is seen as treason.
Arrested some 50 years after the events, she, when questioned, reflects on those long
lost days when as a promising physics student at Cambridge in 1938 she becomes
romantically involved with a fellow student, a communist sympathiser.
After her graduation, Joan (young-Joan Sophie Cookson) secures a position as an assistant
in a weapons research facility where she becomes intricately in the development of a
nuclear weapon.
When now developed the bomb is used by the Americans to end the war in Japan Joan
becomes troubled by the vast destruction and loss of life caused by the device.
She is approached by her once romantic link to share the secrets of the weapon so Russia
could be equal to the west.
Joan at first rejects the request, after all, she'd signed the official secrets act, and couldn't
betray the trust placed in her.
However, eventually, she does pass on imperative information enabling communist Russia
to develop the weapon.
Joan saw it, not as betrayal, but, by evening things up, preventing further use of the deadly
weaponry.....how could one make a judgement?
As always, perhaps one of the best actresses that ever graced the screen, Judi Dench as the
elderly Joan is superb.

26 people found this helpful

Betty

I very much enjoyed a totally different film.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 4, 2019

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Anyone hoping to enjoy a Judi Dench outing may be disappointed. Her role seemingly completed in an afternoon’s filming, edited and dispersed into the production in batches of three seconds, consisting of wistful looks, head hangings and sighs. Along with a few interactions with her onscreen son (played half-heartedly by someone who also appeared in the woeful BBC effort “The Capture”, but in that he showed his range by doing a different accent), Dame J.D does deliver a cringeworthy, clichéd speech to a group of assembled extras masquerading as press at the film’s finale, which is inexplicably followed by a summary of the film the audience has just endured. This gives the game away that even the filmmakers know they didn’t deliver a credible storyline and felt obliged to top it off with a few words.

Entirely lacking in tension, this amateurish effort relaxes it’s way in to repetition - a love scene with the communist, a love scene with the scientist, a love scene with the communist… Neither script nor depiction hangs together believably to explain Joan’s attraction to either man and since she disagrees with both on a political level, her motivation is left unknown until clumsily spelled out in the latter stage of the film. The viewer knows little more about Joan than at the outset, a shame as 101 minutes of blank screen would be every bit as educational and marginally more entertaining.

A good deal of the fault of the film missing its presumed mark lies with young Joan, disastrously played by charm vacuum Sophie Cookson, who sniffs her way though many of her scenes (viewers wishing to pass the time during the 1 hour 41 minute running, which seems like 4 hours 11 minutes, are encouraged to play the drinking game "Sniffles Bingo”). Although she seems pleased to be included in the production and brings her best stage school over-animated buoyancy, Cookson's portrayal does not bring the viewer an understanding of Joan, but rather imprints a pretty unlikeable character lacking in dimension. Sadly this, together with the nodding pace, leaves the viewer disinclined to feel anything much for Joan at all and is unlikely to promote any debate on did she or did she not “do the right thing” - presumably a principal aim of the filmmaker. A wasted opportunity, since five minutes reading about Melita Norwood (the real life character on which Red Joan is based) on Wikipedia is more illuminating, more satisfying and, as a bonus, leaves 96 minutes banked.

4 people found this helpful

Will Mac

A very watchable film but we felt it could have posed more threat

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 28, 2020

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There are some very good aspects to this film but, for us, it had a bit too much of a BBC Sunday night drama. That's probably deliberate and, of course, okay for many. But, and despite the once again excellent acting of Judi Dench (and Sophie Cookson), we felt it could have contained more threat - to Joan, not the nation - and been darker too.
It might be thought easy that Judi Dench could carry off the role of an elderly, intelligent woman but she acts the shock and stupor of the accused soviet spy tremendously well (conveying the role of well meaning but naïve scientist/academic of the times).
Sophie Cookson was a tour de force (as she was in the BBC role recently as Christine Keeler). Ben Miles, in the role of Joan's son, was also, once again, first-rate. But why did soviet spy Sonya have to be depicted as a vamp - surely a cliché. Sadly too, we didn’t find Tom Hughes very convincing as a German / Russian Jewish émigré.
But, overall, it’s a good drama - though it could have been excellent.
PS It's an old gripe of mine that all the clothing in period dramas always looks brand new and well cleaned - even the extras waving placards and heckling in the streets. Similarly, the cars always looked washed and in excellent condition. Did everybody have time, post war, to wash their cars, and enough money always to afford new clothes?

3 people found this helpful

F.T.F

An intriguing true story of espionage recruitment

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 29, 2020

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Really enjoyed this. Switching from Joan's present day, explaining who she was and how her past during the 2nd World War has caught up with her.
The scenes of younger Joan in the 40's are exquisit. Fabulously historicly accurate period portrayals and styles.
The story is very compelling. Well layed out storyline and 1st class acting.
Based on real people and events, the research has been very thorough.

Though I would suggest it may have been as good if not better as a TV mini series. Fleshing out some of the more intrcate and intimate details.
Non-the-less, its production value and direction is superb. Not surprising as Trevor Nunn is involved.
This isn't an action film but an intriguing story of espionage recruitment. A look into the value and meaning of patriotism and balancing it out with the overarching need and desire for peace between nations.

3 people found this helpful

Hande Z

More Cambridge spies

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 30, 2020

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This is a first class performance by Sophie Cookson and Judi Dench. It is based on a true story, but it is not clear whether the story is as romantic as the film has it, one might suspect that the parties were probably duller and more serious in the real life version; but that is what a dramatic film does, it polishes and embellishes life until it resembles a dream. The underlying theme is about how bright young people are driven by their respective character and personality to the ideologies that capture their imagination and ideals. It also opens the question as to what should give way when ideology clashes with patriotism.

2 people found this helpful

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Red Joan [DVD] [2019]

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Genre	drama, Biography, Romance, romantic-drama
Format	PAL
Language	English