Undescribable Perfection

good back-story, and good acting

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

MI5 discovers a political scandal in Britain. As the boss of MI5 dies (natural causes), everybody involved tries to cover his ass. Furthermore, a girl tries to learn the truth about her brothers killing by Israelis. Bill Nighy is perfect as cool old dog. The kiss was unnecessary and implausible.

Take two twelve bottle cases of wine and stack one on top of the other.. then try carrying them both in one arm, while you're carrying something else in the other.. oh yea, and make it look totally easy, like there was nothing inside the two boxes.. (cause obviously there wasn't)!! And that's only one example of just how absurd parts two and three of this trilogy eventually become. Page Eight was really good enough (gorgeous RW), and I was so looking forward to the other two segments. But it was like night and day.. as if part one was made in Britain, and two and three in the US. The 7 rating is for part one.. two and three deserve no more than a 5.. and that's being overly generous.

Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) is an old hand in MI5. One night, he's pulled into his neighbor Nancy Pierpan (Rachel Weisz)'s apartment to help her end a bad date. Only Nancy's date keeps hanging around. He has a rocky relationship with his artist daughter Julianne (Felicity Jones). He's suspicious and later finds out that she's a journalist with arab ties. His superior and friend Benedict Baron (Michael Gambon) gives him a file about American detention black sites to read. On the bottom of page 8, the report says "Downing Street already knows about this." Home Secretary Anthea Catcheside (Saskia Reeves) is taken aback. Johnny is a dinosaur and apolitical. When Benedict Baron dies, he is being cornered by the prime minister (Ralph Fiennes).This is a modern spy thriller. I'm reluctant to call this a thriller. It's not just that there are no shootouts or car chases. The pacing is quite slow. Then there is the danger involved for the protagonist. It's hard to see where the danger for him lies. Basically he has something valuable but unless people starts taking shots at him, there is no danger. Bill Nighy is interesting but has no energy in this role. And his romance with Rachel Weisz is awkward as heck.

Although many contemporary British films are full of chases-explosions-shootings, then, from time to time, spy films with slower pace find their decent place in the British filmography. Page Eight is a nice example of the latter, with the fine protagonist Johnny Worricker, MI5 analyst, stylishly performed by Bill Nighy, accompanied by several other British actors such as Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz and Michael Gambon. The script, however, is uneven at times, with decrease in thrill, over-sophistication and unreasoned scenes, but calm atmosphere, witty lines and inclusion of art help to level them, nothing becomes annoying or ridiculous. The ending is expected, but pleasantly elaborate, and when the credits appear, one can ponder on and over human values and drawbacks related to the life dedicated on intelligence and politics.