2018 ( UK ) ( Biography, Drama, Romance )
Starring: Judi Dench, Sophie Cookson, Stephen Campbell Moore
Director: Trevor Nunn
Red Joan stars Judi Dench who plays a former Soviet spy, in a film inspired by the case of Melita Norwood, a British civil servant who was revealed to have provided nuclear secrets to the Soviets and only unmasked when she was well into her eighties.
In the year 2000, Joan Stanley’s (Judi Dench) suburban life is turned upside down when she is arrested by MI5 and accused of treason. Events from 1938 are brought to light when the young Joan (Sophie Cookson), a physics student at Cambridge, falls in love with a young communist Leo Galich (Tom Hughes). She subsequently gets a job at a top-secret nuclear research facility during WWII with Professor Max Davis (Stephen Campbell Moore). She is adamant that she won’t betray her country but finds herself conflicted when the Americans cause nuclear devastation in Hiroshima.
Judi Dench mesmerises viewers as a rattled, yet confident and mature Joan who claims accountability for her actions as a young, idealistic woman.
(1hr 41min)