The Little Drummer Girl
2018
Florence Pugh is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors of her generation. Turning thirty this year, she has shown not only talent but the stewardship thereof, continually putting in stronger and more impressive performances. From her debut in 2014’s The Falling, through her Oscar-nominated role in Little Women and her sadly overlooked tour de force in A Good Person, to her endlessly entertaining work as Yelena Belova for Marvel Studios, Pugh only gets better. She even stands out in her animation voiceover work, impressing in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and stealing the show in The Boy and the Heron as a character whose age and identity shift! But early in her career—between her critical breakout in Lady Macbeth and her popular one in Midsommar—she was already a sheer detonation in the BBC/AMC miniseries of John le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl.
Here, she plays Charlie, a promising but unknown British theatre actress who is seduced by Alexander Skarsgård for the purpose of being drawn into a Mossad deep cover job among Palestinian terrorists. Of course, this leads to questions of loyalty and identity fired from everyone at everyone else. In a lying game, all you have is faith in your allies. But that faith requires doubt. And where is the line between blind faith in your comrades and unquestioning zeal for a cause? Every time Charlie is moved into a smaller circle of trust, her ability to believe in the previous one is under attack.
Pugh can play this incredibly complicated character, who never truly knows whom to trust, what the big picture is, or what she will be called on to do. She is mesmerizing in her micro-decisions and temporary allegiances while she struggles to believe that she is a good person doing good for a good cause. Does Skarsgård’s character have real feelings for her? Does she have real feelings for her Palestinian leader? Can she afford to have feelings at all? But who will believe an emotionless woman who shows no hesitation or guilt? Her sincerity is all she has. But she must hold on to it while embodying a lie. It’s an actor’s dream.
The series is directed by Korean superstar Park Chan-wook with his trademark visual dexterity and sense of unease. He is especially skilled at crafting telling transitions with a genuine cool factor. Every actor here—and there are a lot—does great work, and I was able to differentiate each of the many characters. Michael Shannon is alternately inscrutable and vulnerable as the Mossad commander, and Charles Dance is infuriatingly snide as his British liaison. Even Skarsgård gives a layered performance, though he wears his heart on his sleeve more than a spy should.
I am always torn when I see great television miniseries. I want to honor them with a place on my lists of favorite projects, but they are neither films nor TV…except when they are. And I feel bad putting them in a ghetto side-list of their own. Perhaps I can convince myself that this is a six-hour movie. I have done that with HBO’s Angels in America. But The Little Drummer Girl feels—at least right now—like a more inherently episodic piece…even though Angels in America has literal, titled chapters. I am always uneasy when I can’t identify a work’s form. But it’s rather fitting for this amazing miniseries about shifting loyalty and uncertain identity. So, I guess I’ll live with it.
Top Miniseries
*note: I have omitted shows that were given ill-advised “2nd seasons” like Big Little Lies and The Young Pope.
Crisis in Six Scenes (2016)
Over the Garden Wall (2014)
WandaVision (2021)
Angels in America (2003)
Fosse/Verdon (2019)
Watchmen (2019)
The Little Drummer Girl (2018)
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (2008)
Irma Vep (2022)
Fanny & Alexander (1984)
Maniac (2018)
Wonder Man (2026)
Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
Olive Kitteridge (2014)
Dekalog (1989)