Red Sparrow

We all know this feeling. There's a film coming out and you can't wait to see it. It stars two actors you've always enjoyed and it's about a subject that's always worth a watch. It can't go wrong. Then it gets released and you start hearing rumblings about it. Negative rumblings. Then people who's opinions you trust start saying it's not the best but no, no, you still want to go and make your own mind up. So you go and then when the film is over you are sitting there annoyed that you didn't listen to those trusted opinions. Yeah Red Sparrow, I'm talking about you of course.

After a horrific injury ruins her career as a ballerina in the Bolshoi ballet a young Russian woman called Dominika Egorova is offered a chance at a new life as a Red Sparrow spy working for her country's intelligence bureau. Here she will be trained to use her sexuality as a weapon. At the same time an American spy in Moscow by the name of Nate Nash has his cover blown pointlessly and jumps at a second chance to complete his objective. It's only a matter of time before they cross paths.

This was okay....ish. It has the bones of something great but fritters a lot of it's goodwill away with an overindulgent running time, unnecessarily complicated to-ing and fro-ing and a chorus of Russian accents that wouldn't have seemed out of place in an episode of Spitting Image, all spoken by a good cast that's mostly wasted. But if you can put the accents aside it is well acted and it's definitely Jennifer Lawrence's film. She gives a brave, open and unshowy performance. It's not just Katniss Everdeen with a glass of vodka. She's a tough piece of work but fragile under it. That glacial Russian exterior that she creates for herself out of necessity masks a warm interior and her relationship with her mother gives the film some much needed heart. Her other relationships throughout the film don't stand up though. The main one she makes just doesn't feel real. It comes out of nowhere and contains a level of intimacy that don't feel earned at all and made me wonder were portions of the story removed to shorten an already long (140 mins) film. This also applies to Dominika's spy training. We barely get a sense of it and it's over. It's odd. Anyways. The always reliable Joel Edgerton is good as Nate but doesn't get much to do. See also Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Irons and Ciaran Hinds especially. Kudos must go to whoever chose Matthias Schoenaerts to play Ivan, Dominika's uncle because he has the Russian look off to a tee. If there is ever a biopic of Vladimir Putin, this chap has to get first refusal on the part.

Much has been made of the violent and sexual content of this film and it earns it 16 certificate with ease.( Btw the version we are getting here and in the U.K. has been snipped of a tiny moment of violence by the filmmakers to prevent it getting an 18 cert). It's not an entertainingly crunchy film though. It's dark and brutal, especially so for a mainstream Hollywood production. Without going into spoiler territory one scene about 30 minutes in will test the mettle of a lot of people in the audience. We aren't spared any detail of what exactly a life of espionage is like for a woman. The brutality throughout the film is used sparsely but it has a horrible impact. A lot of people won't be able to take it.

An interesting aspect of the film is it's depiction of life as a commodity. Dominika's body is not her own and she is told this many times throughout the story. Raised, taught, nourished by the state and now it's time to pay the piper. To survive she has to dehumanise herself and give in to the idea that she is there to be used by men. It's not hard to see a parallel between the treatment of the women spies in this and young women in modern day show business. Jennifer Lawrence herself had a horrible taste of the dark side of celebrity life in the photo hacking scandal of 2014.

There's plenty of good in here, the opening 5 minutes is great especially, but as I mentioned it's just too diluted. It's too long, it's too dull, it's too muddled. All that and it's too nasty as well. Save your rubles and wait for this to turn up on netflix.