You'd think a movie making a point about treason would allow some room for depth and ideas. But this movie is a shallow, wealth and privilege-envy piece. Pretty boys traipse through this would-be drama that adopts the viewpoint of a petulant, oblivious, vain, homosexual snob away at school in Jolly Old. The twee goings-on advance the preposterous premise that Guy Bennett (based on Guy Burgess) went Commie because he was gay, and was thrown out of school before he got to wear his foppish upper-classmen vest. Oh brother! ...oh, and he received a caning once. He was OK with the canings others received as a routine part of the English school system, but HIS caning hurt. This is roughly analogous to saying Guy Bennett became a roadside bandit, a pirate, or an evil scientist because he had a bad experience at Cambridge. Yeah, everyone has a bad experience at Cambridge. As depicted here, Bennett becoming a Communist in response to his social structure is as likely as Martha Stewart becoming a Sumo wrestler after she burnt a soufflé. Bennett is interested in nothing but himself, as played by Rupert Everett.
"How dare you think about the script? Just look at those high production values!"