Every plot point and every character insight gets delivered with the same manufactured smoothness; the movie is naggingly bland in the way one associates with "respectable" British cinema.

| Mar 10, 2020

In technical terms, it's a proficiently made film by the evergreen Trevor Nunn -- or it would be if it were not so determined to embrace all the cliches of the moment, both about British spies and films for women.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 6, 2019

This period drama is stuffy and slow, told in a clumsy way to justify Dench's casting and presence, and is still a waste of her time.

| Original Score: C- | May 3, 2019

Although the story sounds fascinating - subterfuge! centrifuge! pinkos! - the film is cold fusion.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 2, 2019

Red Joan stands for nothing, and it's all the duller for failing to find even the slightest spike in this tale of duplicity.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 2, 2019

Dench, in her limited screen time, gives us tantalizing hints of who this weary-looking woman, slumped by the weight of secrets, might be.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 1, 2019

...most of Dame Judi's scenes are quick and a criminal waste of her talent.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 25, 2019

For a movie about an intelligent female Cambridge science student and communist sympathizer, this movie sounds interesting. Too bad it is awfully dull.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Apr 24, 2019

The sentimental treatment that director Trevor Nunn adopts seems misplaced, almost crazy in its subjectivity.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Apr 24, 2019

Dench delivers some fine speeches in defence of her character's younger days, but her role is exceedingly limited.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 23, 2019

Dench is a triple agent but Nunn squanders her talents. What a betrayal.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 21, 2019

The result is a film which, although very handsomely made, has little dramatic intensity.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 19, 2019

How do you bring the legendary stage director Trevor Nunn together with the peerless screen icon Judi Dench, hand them a real-life wartime spy story that's full of sex and intrigue, and a race to build a nuclear bomb, yet still, somehow, end up with this?

| Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 19, 2019

A strange, bifurcated tale of love and espionage, with Judi Dench stuck in a thankless role that does nothing to capitalize on her talents. The film is worse for it.

| Original Score: C+ | Apr 19, 2019

Uneven it may be, Red Joan still emanates a memorable essence, one that's refreshingly and believably feminine.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 19, 2019

Cookson is very good, but she's too often left to perform in a vacuum. Lindsay Shapero's script - based on Jennie Rooney's novel - neglects to build in the tension Cookson clearly aims to generate.

| Apr 18, 2019

It takes a quality - not a gift exactly, but a quality - to make something so boring of such a fascinating subject.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 18, 2019

But it's not only its generic elements and sporadic listlessness that hampers "Red Joan," it's that the film's attempts to convince us of the rightness of her actions don't succeed either.

| Apr 18, 2019

It's a simplistic take on a potentially fascinating subject: right cast, wrong film.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 18, 2019

What should be breathless and urgent is instead polite and listless: if you can't ignite sparks from an illicit bathroom assignation, then maybe espionage just isn't your thing.

| Apr 18, 2019