Red Joan (2019), directed by Trevor Nunn

In the year 2000 a woman in her 80s is arrested in London and charged with passing classified information to the Russians. As Special Branch police question her, Joan Stanley flashes back to her Cambridge studies in 1938 and her experiences during and after World War II. Based on the true story of Melita Norwood, Joan is portrayed as neither a communist nor a traitor but as a scientist and an idealist who wanted peace. Judi Dench eschews all makeup and is a convincing old lady, bewildered by her arrest for, as she tells her barrister son, “I’ve done nothing wrong.” Sophie Cookson is suitably wide-eyed as the younger Joan, seduced by charismatic communists Sonia and Leo. The very good-looking supporting cast includes Stephen Campbell Moore, Tom Hughes and Ben Miles in a solid film that is sometimes a little slow, but is always interesting.