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The movie “Russia House,” starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer, is based on the spy novel of the same name, by that master spy-meister, the British John LeCarre. It’s a very acute look at Russia, just as their “Glasnost,” policy of openness begins to end –but not quite– the cold war. The talented British playwright Tom Stoppard adapted the script, largely faithful to the novel. The respected director Fred Schepisi helmed. Like most of the movies adapted from LeCarre’s oeuvre, it reflects his extraordinary abilities with plotting and dialogue. Though, mind you, the dialogue is quite mannered, as also reflects LeCarre’s works, not to mention Stoppard’s.

The plot, set in London, Russia, and some other glamorous continental cities, concerns an informant, unknown to the British Secret Service, MI5, who has suddenly popped up, in this period of glasnost, with very valuable, top secret data as to the Russian military’s preparedness. The Secret Service doesn’t quite know what to make of it, so they press Scott Barley Blair (Sean Connery), an alcoholic publisher specializing in Russian subjects, into service. He’s to go to Russia (several times, it turns out) to locate this most secret of spies. Along the way, he meets and falls in love with Michelle Pfeiffer, never better as an actress, nor more beautiful, as a single mother who works in publishing.

The movie shows us quite a lot of snow, and life as it was lived in Russia at the time. The everyday struggles for the underprivileged, as Pfeiffer’s character, despite her glamorous job,is. Three generations living cramped in a tiny apartment, the queuing for necessities, the difficulty of obtaining new clothes, and, as for shoes, forget it. The privileges of the privileged: the nice cars, the dachas (the greatly-desired country homes), the designer duds. It further deals with the usual suspicions between the British and American secret services. Finally, it gives us an honest, unsensationalized, non-mawkish view of middle-aged love, though it is burdened with a Hollywood happy ending that you won’t find in the book.

In this movie, Sir Sean Connery shows us a side of him we don’t often see: tenderness. His sax-playing among Russian friends (voiced by Branford Marsalis), is quite moving. Also on view is that sly Scottish sense of humor Connery spices his movies, and his conversations with: I once interviewed the man, in his trailer on New York’s Fifth Avenue, while he was making some film or another: and his humor was so sly, my editor complained that it was a boring article. Oh well, I guess you had to be there.

As to the rest of the cast, Michelle Pfeiffer does very well, as mentioned above. Klaus Maria Brandauer also stands out as “Dante,” the most unusual secret Russian informant. There was also some money spent on the supporting cast: Americans J.T. Walsh, Roy Scheider, John Mahoney. Brits, Ian McNeice, James Fox, Michael Kitchen, David Threlfall.

“Russia House” was written, and filmed, at the optimum time for its plot, and thereby acquires a resonance it might otherwise not have had. It was a lucky break for author, filmmakers, and us.