Red Sparrow

This week I watched:

Red Sparrow (2018).

Based on the novel of the same name by Jason Matthews who spent thirty-three years at the CIA. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Ciarán Hinds and Jeremy Irons amongst others. It is directed by Francis Lawrence (no relation to Jennifer) who directed the Hunger Games movies.

The story in a nutshell is this (Mild Spoilers):

Dominika (Lawrence) is a Prima Ballerina until her career is destroyed. Her mother is an invalid and both her doctors and their apartment are payed for by the ballet company, something they will no longer do now that Dominika can no longer dance. Her uncle Vanya, the deputy director of SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service, wants to help her so he sends Dominika on a “simple mission”. After the mission ends dramatically Vanya talks her into joining a sparrow school in return for the apartment and the doctors being payed for.

The sparrow school is an institute that trains spies in the art of seduction, or rather it trains spies for that role. They learn to shoot, pick locks and other spy stuff as well of course, but the manipulation and sex is the main thing. Failure to graduate means a bullet to the head.

Parallel to this is a CIA agent, Nate Nash who has to flee Russia, but his highly placed mole refuses to deal with anyone else so he has to go to Budapest to introduce a new contact to the mole. Dominika, despite her trainers objections is sent to Budapest as well by uncle Vanya to find out the name of the mole from Nash. What follows is a back and forth as Nash tries to make her defect and we wonder whether she wants to or if she is playing him, everything ultimately culminating in a dramatic ending.

Red Sparrow is like a marble floor, very pretty but cold, hard and uncomfortable. It is beautifully shot and the actors are all great, but the movie lacks passion. Add to this the fact that it is two hours and twenty minutes long and it becomes a slog at times. It's not that the movie wastes time, it's just that there are so many scenes that are boring. I appreciate a slow moving spy drama like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy but Red Sparrow is too dull at times. There is unsurprisingly quite a lot of nudity and sex in the movie but do not expect titillation, it is all rather unfeeling and tawdry. The action that there is is good but pretty unremarkable and if it wasn't for the ending, I would have been disappointed.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, if you really like spy movies but otherwise not really. Perhaps it is me, but everything that was supposed to be shocking and dramatic, I have seen other movies do better so ultimately it left me with very little. There is nothing really wrong with Red Sparrow and it could be you would like it more, but in that case it has to be your decision to watch it rather than my recommendation.

 

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!