THE COURIER | L’OMBRA DELLE SPIE

the most commercial films this year will screen in the premieres section, the Benedict Cumberbatch Soviet-era drama Ironbark
The 2020 edition of the fest is set to run Jan. 23-Feb. 2 in and around Park City.
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Businessman Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) and prim but warm housewife Sheila (Jessie Buckley) lead a properly quiet English life. When rumblings of a mole in the Soviet Union government reach British intelligence agent Dickie Franks (Angus Wright) and CIA official Emily Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan), Greville is called upon by his country precisely for his ordinariness. He is thrown into the political conflict, and as his efforts to end the Cuban Missile Crisis deepen, he forges an unbreakable bond with his informant that will be put to the ultimate test. Pressured by Sheila’s suspicion of his secrecy and as the Soviets close in on the plot, Greville proves himself not to be ordinary at all.

Sundance Institute creative advisor Dominic Cooke directs this unflinchingly suspenseful political drama based on a true story. Cumberbatch and Buckley develop a pure and completely charming connection that adds a rosy hue to this dark portrait of the risks of espionage. Ironbark explores diplomacy, patriotism, virtue, and bravery, but above all else, Greville Wynne reminds us of the simple humanity at the center of every conflict.
www.sundance.org/projects/ironbark

Benedict Cumberbatch teases Sundance spy drama Ironbark: ‘It’s quiet heroics in a very loud world’


But the shoot wasn’t without its challenges. In addition to mastering the accent, Cumberbatch also had to lose a great deal of weight in three months for just four scenes (rejecting suggestions that he Benjamin Button the rapid transformation) and a winter shoot in Prague, for which he had to be “semi-naked in real ex-prisons” that were well below freezing, making him terribly ill despite production’s efforts to keep him warm between takes. But the actor wouldn’t have had it any other way. “It’s nothing compared to what [Wynne] went through,” he says. “That’s the thing with these kinds of roles. People go, ‘Whoa, you did that?’ [But] you’re humbled by the reality, which is very far from what you have to do as an actor. And that helps you get there. That gives you all the motivation you need, frankly.”
https://ew.com/film-festivals/2019/12/16/b...photo-sundance/