This one reminded me of the far more obscure Iron Curtain, which I’d picked out at random from MMU stacks. Both feature the spy novel trope of a Russian embassy, trying to make its way in the world (this time in Mexico), as it’s beset by weirdos who can’t resist roping them in to some spooky melodrama, pushing secrets and other adult material.
The Snowman is the pusher. He’s very pushy. And why not? He gets rewarded for it. He’s like guinea pig S (thinking of B). He burns through a lifetime of luxury living in a brief snort of time.
The Falcon (another young white-n-nerdy guy, about the same age) has a literal pet falcon, which also symbolizes his freedom, which he has to give up (let go of) as the price of defending Australians from the machinations in the backrooms. That comes as a climax in the film, when he’s a man on the run.
The USSR embassy in question is in Mexico, and we’re thinking L.H. Oswald likely went there much like this Snowman character. Falcon and Snowman are friends going back (both altar boys), although the former’s parents try hard to extract their son from the latter’s drug dealing (pushing) reality (lifestyle).
The Falcon’s dad is retired FBI and he’s able to provide a cushy make-me-proud path for his son, if only his son shapes himself accordingly, in the image of the dad (or call it patriarchy, pretty standard).
I liked how the novelist and screenwriters collage the satellites, the communications rooms, the excessive drinking, with the intel world.
Having been in such communications rooms myself (I’m thinking of a specific embassy) I can confirm there’s some realism swirled in. I also liked that our young protagonist is bombarded with strong views and attitudes by his coworkers, all of whom feel free to speak their minds, especially when under the influence.
The funniest part was the inspection by the NSA agent. The CIA is known to be sloppy and full of rogue ne’er-do-wells, whereas the NSA is the adult in the room. The suspense is high as the guy probes the shredded papers. Does he miss the hidden alcohol or does he predict and expect that it’s there (?), cuz every communications room is a carbon copy, ad infinitum in the backrooms.
The Falcon, on the other hand, has more to lose, should the NSA guy discover he’s a spy for the Soviets. But every comm room has its Soviet spy, par for the course.
That’s why Project Pyramid is always being photographed and sent to them (the Russian baddies, Boris and Natasha); they likely get a thousand scans a day from the thousand Falcons defending a someplace (an erehwon), if not Australia.
I did wonder why were labor unions, the target for CIA infiltration (the Falcon intercepts a misdirected communication sent by a more advanced drinker in another comm room), what this middle-class-with-well-off-parents guy felt especially protective towards. Not that he’d be anti-union necessarily, but why choose that particular hill to die on? And who, on average, cares that much about Australia? The Aussies would get their revenge in a future chapter (thinking Rupert).
The screenplay endeavors to answer that question: he’s in friendly competition with the Snowman to show off who is more the good Catholic kid, under it all, in the eyes of God. Meaning they both wanna be heroes, but with so much at stake, other challenges obtrude, such as paranoia. Pretty soon, even the stuffed owl is listening to your conversations.
Speaking of Eve listening in on Bob and Alice (a pattern): I enjoyed the flashback to dial phones and needing to leave the one receiver off the hook (to not hang up) then picking up in another room. If the first phone is left off the hook, there’s an opportunity for Eve to listen in. This pattern also repeats across households; families living together in intimate circumstances usually have trouble keeping secrets from one another, although full disclosure is not what usually happens either (much is left to the imagination).
“Everything coming out in the wash” usually mostly happens, and melodramatically at that, in the movies.
The Falcon character reminded me of another middle class Catholic Republican, Brian S. Willson who believed everything his subculture believed was true, then experienced profound disillusionment. Brian is a Viet Vet who also paid a high price and now lives in Nicaragua. That guy didn’t have the same access to state secrets though, and had resorted to more ordinary labor-union-like protests and civil disobedience.
