Actually saw this French cold war spy thriller a couple of weekends ago but Birthday celebrations and general busy-ness got in the way of writing up my thoughts.
I'm a bit of a fan of films set during the cold war and have been looking out for something to match up to the excellent The Lives of Others (2007) for sometime. This one seemed to fit the bill: It's set in Moscow rather than Germany and is about a French engineer, Pierre, who reluctantly gets roped into passing on Russian secrets to the French intelligence service.
It is based on a true story and certainly has a good dollop of tension but this feels more like a character piece, focusing on the relationship that develops between Pierre (Guillaume Canet) and the Russian mole Sergei (Emir Kusturica) and their motives. The stronger the bond and understanding then the more there is to loose.
There is much to enjoy about Farewell including scenes towards the end that have you holding your breath but it stops just a smidge short of matching The Lives of Others somehow.
I'm giving it 71%. It gets 86% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 75% of site visitors liked it too. On Metacritic it gets 75% from the critics but hasn't had enough users rate it yet.
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