From the liner notes

From internationally acclaimed spy-turned-author John Le Carré (The Tailor of Panama), comes this intelligent and elegant thriller based on his best-selling novel of the same name.

When a former colleague of master spy George Smiley (Elliot) receives a letter from a schoolmaster’s wife who is convinced her husband is trying to kill her, Smiley agrees to investigate. Only he arrives too late. The grief-stricken husband has an airtight alibi, but everybody else seems to have something to hide. Smiley soon digs up a world of secret societies and sexual scandals while justice—and the killer—seem as elusive as ever. But does the mysterious boy Timothy Perkins (Bale) hold the key to everything?