The Amateur
In theatres April 11, 2025
ROBERT LITTELL’S SPY NOVEL about a rogue CIA cryptographer trying to escape Czechoslovakia after killing the terrorists who killed his wife was first made into a Canadian movie in 1981. This new adaptation concedes that the Iron Curtain may be long gone, but argues you can still avenge a murder by blackmailing federal agents. Rami Malek plays the title character, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel star Rachel Brosnahan plays his wife. In Jewish writing trivia: Littell’s first book credit was 1969’s If Israel Lost the War, and former prime minister Shimon Peres recruited him to co-write For the Future of Israel, about the Oslo negotiations. In further evidence of eclecticism: earlier this year he published Bronshtein in the Bronx, inspired by Leon Trotsky’s pre-Russian Revolution visit to New York. Marc Weisblott
