The design and cinematography are still stunning, but on this go-round the film struck me as being stuffy, even neurotic. I loved Graham Greene as a young adult. What might it mean that all of his overwhelming subtlety now puts me off? This must be the part of me that prefers to watch Brendan Shanahan clobber Patrick Roy. Still, those moments! And what they add up to as well. Who is at fault here? Everyone, probably, and each with his or her profoundest, most deeply-felt reasons.
Don’t be put off by my being put off. Like the films of David Lean and Alexander Mackendrick (for all the differences in sensibility), this is British film craftsmanship of the very highest, the most stratospheric order.