A Compassionate Spy

I found it kind of one-sided... It's hard to know what his motivations were, and I wish James explored that more.

Very interesting. Some people -- like myself -- would just call this movie "A Spy." But that's okay!

Riding the coattails of Oppenheimer, this documentary suffers from a drift into hagiography.

This absorbing, thoughtful film doesn’t take sides... Instead, via interviews, film clips and dramatic re-creations, A Compassionate Spy revisits the changing world the Halls passed through together.

The film leaves no doubt Ted Hall was a brilliant man, and that he and Joan had a beautiful marriage. His legacy beyond that remains a subject of intense debate.

James approaches A Compassionate Spy with a compassionate touch; this is more a profile of a man and a 52-year marriage than a History Channel-style march through events. And it is certainly not an indictment.

A Compassionate Spy is a love story as much as it is a history lesson or a spurring of political and philosophical debates.

Hall’s story is extraordinary, then, but sadly the telling of it is not, and although it seems fair not to create action and suspense when there really was none, A Compassionate Spy nevertheless fails to fully engage with the enormity of its subject.

Even though the documentary would have benefitted from a more unbiased approach, the film is worth checking out as a postscript for “Oppenheimer.”

A Compassionate Spy is a tender love story. While Ted’s taped testimony provides the whats and the whys for his narrative, Joan’s accounts are the heart of the film.