Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Compassionate Spy’ on Hulu, the Fascinating Documentary Saga of an American Man Who Leaked Atomic Secrets to Russia

The documentary A Compassionate Spy (now streaming on Hulu) arrived nearly in concert with Oppenheimer, both being about men who developed the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, and suffered some deeply troubling ethical dilemmas. Director Steve James’ (Hoop Dreams, Life Itself) doc profiles one of Robert Oppenheimer’s underlings, Ted Hall, a physics wunderkind who was recruited for the Manhattan Project at only 18 years of age, and ended up being an “atom spy,” leaking U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. His justifications were as follows: He believed scientific discoveries should be apolitical and not beholden to one country. He believed if both countries had the bomb, they’d stalemate, and be less likely to use it. And he believed the U.S. planned to bomb Russia, and that his actions ultimately saved lives. Of course, the implications of his actions run far and wide, and James, profiling Ted and his wife Joan Hall, cracks open a can of worms so deep with speculation, I’m not sure we can see the bottom of it.

A COMPASSIONATE SPY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: “You didn’t think, ‘If I do this, I’m breaking the law and they might execute me’?” Joan Hall asks. “No,” is her husband Ted’s reply. We’re watching archival footage from a 1998 BBC profile. A couple years prior, the U.S. government declassified documents that revealed details of an FBI investigation into Ted, who was on the team that designed the atom bomb, was terrified by its power, and therefore shared atomic information with Russian agents. He was barely an adult when he did it, and well into his 70s, ailing and feeble, he still shows no real regrets; he feared a U.S. nuclear monopoly would result in many lives lost, and stands firmly by that assertion. He died in 1999, of cancer that was a likely result of his work with plutonium at Los Alamos, something this documentary probably should’ve mentioned; a large portion of James’ film consists of commentary by a roughly 90-year-old Joan, who shares vivid details of their lives as leftist activists, scientists, academics and devoted life partners who raised a family together. (Joan passed away in July, 2023, at the age of 94.)

Joan reads from a book of her poetry, evoking memories of the late 1940s, when she was a student at the University of Chicago who met Ted and his best friend Saville Sax, scenes we see in reenactment with young actors. They constituted an awkward love triangle for a bit – Joan keeps the details to herself; “too private,” she says – but she and Ted formed a tight bond, and fell in love. He proposed, but not until he, if you’ll pardon the expression, dropped a bomb on her: He and Sax had leaked atomic secrets to the Soviets. And she stayed, not for stand-by-your-man country-song reasons, but because she was a staunch leftist who believed in communism and, like Ted, saw the world through “pinkish colored glasses.” They were repulsed by the American jingoism that followed the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and feared the U.S. was slipping into right-wing fascism. “You think the United States is an ugly place now, it was worse then,” Joan says in a 2019 interview; cue an outtake from President Truman’s address, where he laughs in the middle of announcing the devastating attack on Japan.

Ted and Joan married, had children, moved to Connecticut and lived mostly normal lives, if you take away the constant paranoia. Ted and Sax were questioned by the FBI, released, and hounded for years; they were followed wherever they went, their phones were bugged and the Halls’ only saving grace was the fact that Ted’s brother was a major cog in the government’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (yes, wow). You won’t be surprised to learn they closely followed the news about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the infamous couple who were executed for being atom spies for Russia, and every time Ted considered coming clean, Joan convinced him otherwise. They relocated to England when Ted got a position developing electron microscopes at Cambridge University; Joan says she always felt stifled by being a suburban American housewife, and appreciated the more liberal European environment, resuming her political activism after the move. Their life was tense, but only when the external world threatened to encroach upon their extraordinary love story.

But what about other perspectives? Sax’s son states vehemently that what his father and Ted did was wrong Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, authors of Bombshell: The Secret Story of America’s Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy, offer some context: the Rosenbergs “were small fish compared to Ted.” They discuss the Cold War and the Red Scare, and iterate that Ted was among a handful of people who committed the same deeds (Oppenheimer cast Christopher Denham to play one of them, Klaus Fuchs). They also speculate on the what-ifs and might-have-beens, all of which will keep A Compassionate Spy buzzing in your head, maybe even for days.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: A Compassionate Spy ruminates around in the ethical murk of docs like Enemies of the State and maybe Citizenfour, the latter prompting us to wonder where on the scale between noble and traitorous folks like Edward Snowden and Ted Hall exist. And of course, it plays like a story running parallel to Oppenheimer.

Performance Worth Watching: Joan Hall is engaging, passionate and opinionated, a fascinating person – regardless of whether you agree with her politics or not – who’s a keystone for the documentary. 

Memorable Dialogue: Asked point-blank why he did what he did, Ted replied, “I guess a major factor would be compassion.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Warning: Watching A Compassionate Spy might make you feel like you’re wrestling a polar bear who’s tag-team partner is an orca. Is Ted Hall a hero or a traitor? Note to everyone everywhere: You don’t need to answer that question. He can be one or the other or both or neither. And although the film is heavy with Joan’s perspective that her husband’s actions were noble-minded, we can still walk away with mixed feelings about the guy, who comes off as a soft-spoken man with a conscience and strong convictions. Agreeing with him isn’t necessary. You’re better off embracing the notion that cognitive dissonance is a constant in life, that holding two contradictory thoughts in your head at once isn’t a wishy-washy weakness. It’s an acceptance of the complexity of truth, that questions exist for which there are no definitive and satisfying answers.

That’s the broad, nigh-existential context of Ted’s story; this documentary drills into the details, and Joan’s deeply compelling narrative keeps us transfixed. The reenactments are sweetly rendered, and her reminiscences always seem fond, even when she and Ted endured the paranoia of the FBI following their every move. And the subtext emerges: Joan and Ted’s relationship was ultimately strengthened by the adversity that was a result of their steadfast convictions. A Compassionate Spy is a love story as much as it is a history lesson or a spurring of political and philosophical debates. We walk away from the doc certain that Ted believed his motives were spurred out of compassion for human life, and that trumped the idea that he was betraying his country. Did Ted Hall and the other “atom spies” make the world a better place, or did they make it more dangerous? The film doesn’t insist we answer that; it only asks us to contemplate it.

Our Call: A Compassionate Spy is a gripping, must-see documentary, one of the best of 2023. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.