Red Joan
Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson take on the complex persona and legacy of Joan Stanley in this historical thriller about the seemingly demure physicist who was also a long-serving British spy for the KGB.
The realm of spies seems exotic, dangerous, and riddled with ethical compromise. But espionage can enter a person’s life through various means, such as accident, ideology, or love. Loosely inspired by the biography of British KGB agent Melita Norwood, RED JOAN lures us into one such case.
The year is 2000. Joan Stanley is a retired scientist living in a London suburb when she is arrested for crimes committed many years ago. We flash back to 1938, and young Joan is a new student at Cambridge, where a chance encounter with Sonya, a fellow student, draws her into a circle of politicized youths supporting the Republicans in Spain and the Soviet dream of a classless society. Joan falls for Sonya’s brother Leo, a dashing idealist in search of adventure. When the Second World War begins, Joan is soon facing several difficult choices: between national loyalties, between belief systems, between men.