The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)

(On Cable TV, January 2021) You can always watch The Falcon and the Snowman for being one of Sean Penn’s early performances, but I found something more interesting in director John Schlesinger’s depiction of a specific time and place—the mid-1970s Southern California defence tech industry, and how the political disillusionment of the time could drive otherwise normal young Americans to propose information to the Soviets thanks to some ill-defined ideal of détente. Or at least that’s what one of the two characters believes, because the dramatic linchpin of the movie is the duelling relationship between the two leads—an idealist competent (played by Timothy Hutton), and a far less reliable friend (Penn) who acts as the go-between with the Soviets. Taking up in spycraft and the complex relationship between source and case officer, except with the inverted perspective from what we usually see, The Falcon and the Snowman remains a mildly effective thriller in which we do root for the spies to be caught red-handed (and one of them more than the other). Perhaps delighting in inversion from spy movie clichés, it’s specifically about spies who end up vastly outclassed by the demands of the lifestyle, and soon seek to get out of it once it doesn’t live up to their romantic notions of it. It does all amount to an effective period piece, down-to-earth and somewhat merciless in puncturing the clichés of the genre while still being effective in its procedural details. No wonder it’s based on a true story.