Barring a few movies like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , very few realistic spies are presented on film.
From the start to the end, le Carre showed the true face of espionage: boring, sordid, toxic to one’s non-work relationships, psychologically wearing.
I have a distant relation who was an actual double-agent, a scholar of the target country who was then turned by them after being sent there as a spy. Our family still laughs about the story of my great-grandmother travelling to visit him in prison after he was caught specifically to berate him.
