Archangel, the movie

When I finished the book, one of the first things I did was check imdb to see if there was a movie. And, yes. There is. Made for the BBC and starring Daniel Craig. It came out in 2004, which meant that Netflix could provide me with my very own DVD to watch. So husband and I settled down with some dinner to watch.

The casting is spot-on. The story follows the book closely enough that I had no problems where it diverged...ok, a little at the end, but when the movie wrapped I was good with it. The crew tweaked what they needed to for purposes of continuity, time, and probably budget. You can tell when they move from "on location" to a soundstage. It's not bad, though. It's BBC.

I lied a little about the casting. Daniel Craig as Fluke Kelso is excellent. A little prettier than the Fluke in my head, but they "normalized" him so I feel like it was a nice compromise. Yekaterina Rednikova is a million times prettier than I imagined Zinaida. Not that I thought Zinaida was ugly in the book, not by any means. But she is, essentially, an orphan who spends half her time pursuing her law degree and the other half of her time being a high-class whore. If anything she should have been more tired.


And also - the guy who played Stalin. Creepy. Scary. Spot-on. The man was insane and the actor captured it. Shudder.

So, it's a movie-based-on-a-book that's worth watching, in my opinion. But read the book first. Because Harris is a genius, I tell you. A GENIUS.

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