THE SYMPATHIZER
ROBERT DOWNEY JR HAS HIS DR. STRANGELOVE MOMENT
Captain, my captain?: Hoa Xuande with Robert Downey Jr in one of his four roles.
Sandra Oh as Sofia.
★★★★
OUT NOW (SKY / NOW) / EPISODES VIEWED 7 OF 7
SHOWRUNNERS Don McKellar, Park Chan-wook
CAST Hoa Xuande, Robert Downey Jr., Sandra Oh, Toan Le, Fred Nguyen Khan, Duy Nguyen, Vy Le
PLOT Imprisoned in a North Vietnamese re-education camp, a man (Hoa Xuande) recalls his years as a Communist spy.
AT REGULAR OPPORTUNITIES, The Sympathizer likes to remind you not to blindly trust what you’re told. At the tail end of the Vietnam War, its narrator (Hoa Xuande), known only as The Captain, is being held in a North Vietnamese re-education camp, where he’s forced into confessing his story. As he recounts his years as a Communist spy, first infiltrating the South Vietnamese special police, then operating as a mole in America after the fall of Saigon, all while reporting back to the very people now holding him captive, The Captain repeatedly states that this is his version of events. Time rewinds as he rethinks his account, adding new details. We watch scenes that he admits he never witnessed. In war, there is no truth, only points of view.