From director James Hawes’ The Amateur’ is a blend of nostalgia and modernity that not only pays homage to the seminal political thrillers of the 1970s but also updates the genre with contemporary themes and cutting-edge technology. Hawes, known for his work on ‘Black Mirror’, ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Slow Horses,’ brings a unique perspective to the film, blending the classic with the current.
Hawes mentioned the influence of classic thrillers like ‘All the President’s Men’ and ‘Three Days of the Condor’ when we spoke to him earlier this month, “I had just come off ‘Slow Horses’ where I’ve been able to play in the sort of the Le Carré genre. Those are the sort of films I want to go and see honestly. I hope we’ve harnessed some of the atmosphere of those movies, even in the look and the feel and the smell of them”.
However, he also emphasised the need to make the film “sharply contemporary,” updating the setting & technology from Robert Littell’s 1981 novel, on which the film is based, to reflect today’s world and help it feel current. For instance, instead of using Prague as the primary location, as in the original book, Hawes opted for Istanbul, a city that feels “more on the frontier of politics and feels less familiar, more dangerous, more edgy.” Hawes jokes that Prague is no longer a dangerous Cold War city of spies, “You’re more likely to get run over by a beer bike than you are taken out by a Russian assassin”.
To ensure the film’s authenticity, Hawes worked closely with serving CIA staff to “stress test” every detail of the operations depicted. He reveals “There are things that have dramatic license, that just stretch a little bit beyond, but what we found both exciting and terrifying was that some of the things we were imagining as near future fiction were happening already, and certainly most of the technical surveillance is very much possible. This collaboration allowed the film to incorporate realistic surveillance techniques, such as using “digital chaff” to distract pursuers, which is “utterly possible” in today’s world.
At the heart of “The Amateur” is an unlikely protagonist played by Rami Malek, who is also a producer on the film. Unlike traditional spy movies where the hero undergoes a transformation into a skilled operative, Malek’s character remains an amateur throughout. As Hawes explains, “He stays forever the amateur in those terms. And therefore we’ve got the underdog to cheer for.” This approach creates a sense of surprise and tension as the character navigates dangerous situations without the typical spy skills.
Hawes spent extensive time with Malek developing the character’s emotional arc, and mapping out the character’s journey from grief to suspicion, “One of my approaches is to sit down in the room, literally for days with Rami, we turned the pages on the scenes, we had the back story from the novel, which we harnessed where it was useful. We were not bound to it, but to really go through his arc of where his character was at any given point. We wanted to chart the story of grief because that gave an honest emotional engine and a temperature to his journey afterwards”.
Visually, Hawes aimed to evoke a sense of claustrophobia and tension in the film, focusing on back-streets rather than iconic landmarks. “I was very keen that it didn’t become a tour of the icons of the cities” he says, “So we didn’t shoot red busses and Big Ben. We didn’t shoot La Tour Eiffel. We were very careful to try and be in the real cities, on the back streets, and that was one of the reasons for choosing Marseille. It felt like we were somewhere a little bit fresher, somewhere that’s filmed a little bit less, at least, internationally”.
The director also wanted the audience to feel like they are on the journey with the protagonist, using camera angles that keep the viewer in the character’s headspace. “You’ll notice that quite a lot of shots are on Charlie’s shoulder, traveling with him”. ” Hawes revealed, “We wanted to make it feel like the audiences is on the journey, on the mission, by his side. And also, by putting the camera behind him, very often, you get both the world he’s traveling in and also the sense of him being hunted because there’s a pressure on his back.”
One of the biggest & most jaw dropping set pieces of the movie, and its trailer, takes place in an infinity swimming pool, suspended in the sky between two buildings. Hawes tells us how the original Mission Impossible movie was influenced by the book of ‘The Amateur’, so for this film he had to make some changes to the plot. The original novel sets this scene in a restaurant aquarium with swimmers inside. “you will have seen that scene or something very close to it in the very first ‘Mission, Impossible, which was obviously inspired by the novel”. the director reveals, “ So the whole thing is again inventing itself and coming full circle. We then took the original inspiration of the swimmer in the aquarium, and put the pool on a rooftop”.
The pool the filmed in is based in London, opposite the American embassy. “We had to get some very special permissions to film up there and fly drones over it”. Says Hawes “Technically achieving that is a huge thing. We ended up building a life size section of it in the studio, so that we could do some of that drop in camera and not rely on VFX, which I always think is part of making it look real, even with the advances in VFX, having some part of it solid and concrete and with the actor able to interact with it really helped sell the whole moment”.
Finishing up, Hawes reflects on wether he’d return to this world for a sequel, “You never, say never. But what most excites me is the setting up of the world and building the flavours, the tone, and discovering the people. So who knows, but I’m lucky enough to be in a place where it seems that I’m also able to have new adventures and fresh adventures”.