Pretty well done to the book to be fair, and Jeremy always produces a top performance. He maintains the flow all the way through, and the the whole is competent and worth a watch.
Unless you are told about it, you might easily skip this as just another film, but for anyone interested in modern European politics in particular the dictatorships of Portugal and other countries, you should give it a watch. This film uses that time as a backdrop to an interesting look back story. Jeremey Irons plays an unusual and for him, role as a university professor drawn into a period of contemporary history and unravels the lives of some interesting people along the way. Worth a watch in this time of formulaic violent adventure, spy dramas. something a bit different.
On a whim, world-weary Swiss professor Jeremy Irons jumps on a train to Lisbon following a woman who has dropped a book that he finds interesting. In Lisbon he becomes fascinated by the former lives of the book’s real-life characters and their resistance to Portugal’s dictatorship.
Irons’ character is fascinating, but the film changes tack to deliver long flashbacks into resistance activities and these are nothing we haven’t seen before. This reviewer ended up zapping the flashbacks to return to the more interesting scenes involving Jeremy’s character arc.