Shadow Dancer (EIFF 2012)

With Shadow Dancer, director James Marsh (Man on Wire, Project Nim) takes us back to a time when – in the UK, at least – the word “terrorist” did not automatically carry connotations of the Islamic ‘other’.  A fine example of the gritty yet increasingly glamorous film-making for which the BBC is developing a reputation, it gives a balanced view of the conflict in Northern Ireland, and uses the story of one woman’s dilemma to sketch a grander and more tragic tale.

Set in Belfast in 1993, the film chronicles the internal conflicts of a divided IRA from the perspective of Collette McVeigh (Andrea Riseborough), a young mother whose loyalties are put to the test when she agrees to be a mole for MI5.  McVeigh’s brothers (Aidan Gillen and Domhnall Gleeson) are major players in the more violent side of the organisation, a group of men looking to intensify the conflict just as the leadership is beginning to talk about peace.  Collette’s MI5 handler Mac (Clive Owen) has his own personal struggles to deal with, not least his growing attraction to her and the conflict this generates with his boss (Gillian Anderson) when it becomes clear that Collette’s life might be in danger.  This danger comes in the form of the sinister Kevin Mulville (David Wilmot), top IRA spy-catcher, and his increasing suspicions about Collette’s double life.

Shadow Dancer shows us a more prosaic side of the fight against terrorism, one which British and American movies of recent years have eschewed in favour of a more sensationalist approach.  Here we see IRA terrorists sitting down to tea with their gran shortly before a planned assassination, and MI5 agents spending the majority of their time doing paperwork and staring at computer screens.  The two organisations become grimy mirrors of each other as the film goes on, mainly through the eerily similar ways in which they treat Colette; as a piece in the game, an inconsequential pawn to be sacrificed for the greater cause.  The dehumanising effect of the explicit and implicit violence which underpins their existence is eventually exposed for all to see, a process which makes Collette’s ultimate choice of loyalties a very difficult one.

It is, however, the relationship between the two central characters which keeps the film anchored.  Riseborough and Owen both give superb performances as the scared yet steely Collette and the crumpled, disenchanted Mac respectively.  While Gillen and Gleeson are both underused, they do a fine job with what they are given, and Wilmot deserves credit for bringing the ruthless and relentless Mulville to life so effectively.  The film also seems to have taken some tips from the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy school of spy thrillers, though instead of the cold war backdrop there’s the oppressive tension of early ’90s Belfast, with tanks on the streets and helicopters overhead.  Much like Tinker Tailor… there seems to be more than enough material here to justify a full TV series rather than a feature film, which makes one wonder why the BBC didn’t choose to adapt Tom Bradby’s novel for the small screen instead.  Having said that, Shadow Dancer makes for a hugely satisfying watch in the cinematic format.  As Collette and Mac’s web of lies begins to tighten around them like a noose, Marsh ramps up the tension to almost unbearable levels, and nicely captures the moral ambiguity of tactics considered legitimate when people believe that their cause is just.

Jim Taylor, geekzine correspondent, reporting from the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2012.