While all of the technical facets of “Tinker Tailor” are top-notch, special accolades are due to production designer Maria Djurkovic; no film since David Fincher’s “Zodiac” has captured the wonderful awfulness of the early 1970s aesthetic quite so vividly. From the bright orange waffle-patterned foam rubber on the walls of the MI6 meeting rooms to the moist squalor of most of the apartments on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the film recreates the era to oppressive perfection.
Theaters this month will be overflowing with awards-bait films that try and fail to dazzle viewers, but “Tinker Tailor” captivates its audience by being aggressively, chillingly low-key.