Movies: The Russia House (1990)

When the West went gaga for Glasnost, ‘The Russia House’ rightly did not

John Le Carre’s 1989 novel The Russia House was adapted as a major motion picture in 1990. The Russia House, directed by Fred Schepisi and co-starring Sean Connery, features a character that seeks to exploit a fleeting moment of openness (“glasnost”) before Soviet Russia collapsed. In those months, Western intellectuals heralded Soviet reform as a grand…