In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet mole within his former colleagues at the heart of MI6.

Set in 1982 in the suburb of Blackeberg, Stockholm, twelve-year-old Oskar is a lonely outsider, bullied at school by his classmates; at home, Oskar dreams of revenge against a trio of bullies. He befriends his twelve-year-old, next-door neighbor Eli, who only appears at night in the snow-covered playground outside their building.

Detective Harry Hole investigates the disappearance of a woman whose pink scarf is found wrapped around an ominous looking snowman.

The film is based on a series of immensely popular Swedish children’s books, about the boy Bert, who is just hitting puberty and having the usual problems with it. But that’s where the usual ends abruptly.