15 Nov 2026, 04:10 AM

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This tale of a young female spy in 1980s East Berlin is a visual delight. Around every corner is a fun comic twistIs there any more alluring aesthetic in screen fiction than the iron curtain thriller? Any TV show dealing in 1980s cold war chic – Deutschland 83, Kleo, Star City, The Same Sky, the Russian bits of The Americans – probably has an irresistible mix of danger, absurdity and exotic kitsch. Moustaches! Wigs! Leather trench coats! Rigid patterned fabrics! Cassette players! Boxy cars! The chilly ennui of oppressed citizens and the flagrant risk-taking of secret agents, all somehow liberated by an existential inner emptiness! It’s just so much fun.Honey pitches us straight into premium frosty paranoia with an opening scene in which British “press attache” – ie spy handler – Graham Anderson (Rory Kinnear, hoorah!) endures a nervous crossing back into East Berlin, during which he really, really does not want his car to be searched. The crowning indignity of his interaction with a chortling buffoon of a border guard is when the manchild in uniform eyeballs Graham’s wife, Anne (Sonita Henry – a slightly more niche hoorah if you saw her fine turns in Silo or The Chelsea Detective), in the passenger seat and decides to show off how closely the pair are being surveilled: “Good luck for your smear test on Thursday, Mrs Anderson!” Continue reading...

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