The world has gotten darker this week with news of the vicious attack on Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists. The situation between the Israeli and Palestinian people, and between their leaders, is a complicated one that has been riddled with unrest and violence for decades. This week’s spy show is set during one such period of unrest, in the late 1970s when attacks by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) were common, as was retaliation by Israel.
The Little Drummer Girl is currently streaming on AMC+ and Amazon Prime.
Is it based on a book?
Not only is it based on a book, it’s based on a book by the daddy of all spy novelists, John Le Carré. What this means is that the story is morally ambiguous, Le Carré’s calling card, and also that it spends more time on spycraft than on action sequences and big set pieces.
Is the spy a man?
NO! I mean, there are male spies, of course, but our protagonist is a young woman who’s recruited by Mossad to go undercover as the lover of a terrorist leader in 1979.
Does the conspiracy go to THE HIGHEST LEVELS????
Refreshingly, no. Le Carré wrote realistically about espionage as a rule. While the plot takes us to several countries and involves not only Mossad but also the British Secret Service, there is never any talk about the Prime Minister of either country getting involved or an assassination attempt on the Queen.
Who is our spy?
Charmian “Charlie” Ross, a young British actress with radical leftwing political leanings and a hunger for a life less ordinary.
Is she sexy?
She’s played by Florence Pugh, so you tell me. (Yes. The answer is yes.)
Does it hook you right away?
Yes, with a devastating terrorist attack in West Germany. This isn’t an action show, there are no heroics. Just actual terrorism and a literal ticking clock.
Is there romance?
In a tortured, confusing sort of way. Charlie is touring Greece with her theater troop when they meet a standoffish (so obviously mysterious and hot) man named Peter. Charlie, no fool, doesn’t believe for a second that he is who he says he is, and won’t even call him by that name. He manages to seduce her anyway, kind of…though as soon as she kisses him, he stops everything and hands her over to his team of spies. She’s being recruited by Mossad. Was Peter–who is actually named Gadi Becker–truly attracted to her? And does she even know who he really is enough to tell whether she’s actually attracted to him? It’s a question that runs throughout their time together as he trains her to be the lover of a Palestinian terrorist by, you guessed it, acting as if he himself is that terrorist, Michel. It’s definitely sexy, but with such an edge of paranoia that we’d almost prefer for them to just leave it alone. Almost.
Are the bad guys interesting?
Hooboy, that is the question! Or, to put it another way, since everyone is interesting in this story, who are the bad guys? It’s nearly impossible to tell. Charlie starts out as a leftist sympathetic to the Palestinians’ cause, attending a talk by the real Michel. She’s no terrorist, though, and isn’t okay with violence of any sort, so she’s willing to help Marty and his team prevent the next in a string of bombings Michel and his brother have been carrying out. It’s only when she discovers that Mossad is perfectly willing to kill the terrorists they catch, rather than arresting them as she’d assumed, that Charlie begins to question whether she’s chosen the right side.
Recruited because she habitually took her acting into her personal life–lying to everyone she knew about her supposedly tortured past–Charlie is a Method actor to the extreme. She has to live a part in order to play it, and when she is finally taken in by the terrorist cell she’s been circling, Charlie so fundamentally embraces the role that we see their cause, and its righteousness, through her eyes. We’re not sure by that point which side she will choose, and it’s even hard to say which side she should choose. Ultimately so much violence is done on both sides of the equation that Charlie and Gadi are left adrift, asking themselves, as Gadi says at one point “if [we] are the bad guys.”
Any big stars?
Lots! In 2023, Florence Pugh is the biggest. When the show was made in 2018, that honor would probably have gone to Michael Shannon as Martin Kurtz, the Israeli spymaster. Rounding out the main three is Alexander Skarsgård, who has only gotten more famous thanks to his work in Big Little Lies, The Northman, and Succession. But I’m going to take a left turn here and say that probably the biggest star on this show is the director, Park Chan-wook, of Oldboy and Decision to Leave fame. The entire series is beautifully made, a slow burn that manages to ratchet up the suspense while keeping Charlie–and the viewer–off-balance nearly the entire time.
Will there be more?
No, this is a one-and-done miniseries. You can watch the 1984 film version starring Diane Keaton, though it didn’t get great reviews. Or read the source material, courtesy of John Le Carré.
Should you watch it?
Definitely. The acting is tremendous, the story is gripping, and honestly a nuanced and intelligent look at the neverending Israeli/Palestinian conflict is probably a good use of your time right about now.
