Red Sparrow (2018)
The cold war is heating up or may never actually have ended, if you believe the hype from Hollywood, and even real life. In recent years, TV shows and films such as The Americans and Child 44 have aired and more recently many US federal agency shows revel in making Russia the enemy. Accusations of Russian involvement in the US presidential elections and the recent poisoning in the UK only add fuel to this particular fire. Whichever way you look, fact or fiction - the Russians are coming.
Red Sparrow is based on the 2013 novel by former CIA operative Jason Matthews and focuses on the story of Dominika Egorova, a prima ballerina in the Bolshoi Ballet Company who suffers a 'freak' injury during a performance which threatens to end her career. With a sick mother at home in a small flat provided by the Bolshoi, Dominika is soon struggling to recover as the company cease their medical care assistance on which her mother depends. Enter her uncle Vanya (Checkov reference anyone?), who is a high ranking officer in the Russian intelligence agency, the SVR and essentially blackmails her in to attending 'whore school'.
Prior to this and subtly encouraged by Vanya, Dominika exacts a violent revenge on the rivals who instigated her on-stage injury. The attack comes when her rivals are having sex; the act of violence during such an intimate moment sets the tone for the remainder of the film. Dominika clearly she has a penchant for violence and that is not particularly explored to any great degree. Her revenge seems to come out of the blue yet throughout the film, her uncle likens her to him. Is this just genetics? There is an undercurrent of possible sexual abuse that may feed in as to why her uncle would wish her to seduce a man who ends up raping her, knowing that would be the likely outcome. Dominika is scared of Vanya and it is the kiss she gives to her uncle which embodies her training as a sparrow. She knows what he wants - and she leaves him wanting.
What sets this apart from the run of mill spy thrillers (and not necessarily in a good way) is the amount of sexual violence. It is well established, at least in the fictional world, that the Russians trained their women in particular, in the art of seduction. These women were sent to infiltrate key elements within the governments of the west and their respective agencies to obtain blackmail material and information to further the cold war. In Red Sparrow, Dominika is sent to seduce Nate Nash, an ordinary but rather weathered-looking CIA operative. Her mission is to discover the identity of his high ranking mole is in the Russian intelligence community.
This is a modern day spy thriller that instantly questions the era of the action. The opening scenes in Dominika's flat look decidedly dated. The decor has a seventies feel which is contradicted by the modern vehicles and technology in other scenes. Red Sparrow is not a sophisticated, sexy, spy thriller and there are plenty of questionable contradictions. The previously mentioned question of modernity is again called to the fore when an operation in London is potentially compromised. An American Senator's Chief of Staff sells information stored on hard discs to the Russians. Everything is on flash drives and has been for a number of years - CDs at very fine push. What computer even has a hard disc drive nowadays? Again in the same scene, there is the cliche of the operation risking failure when Dominika's boss turns up and then threatens to catch her exchanging the real discs for fake ones when she struggles to open a secret compartment.
The characters too are not fully drawn or adhere to the usual stereotypes of Russian intelligence officers. Uncle Vanya has a decidedly Putin like look about him. Nate Nash is an underwhelming CIA agent. There is nothing compelling or overly competent about his character. He is first introduced, intercut with Dominika's ballet performance/accident, by having a failed encounter with his mole. Later he has to fight to his superiors to get back in to the game. Nash is only missing the characteristic of an alcoholic to be complete. He knows Dominika is a spy sent to seduce him and in a film that tries to assert that Dominika is in control of her own sexuality (she repeatedly defies instructions from Matron in 'sparrow school'), he allows her to do just that.
There is an air of uncertainty about which side Dominika is really on. Who is she playing? The Russians or the Americans? Or both? For the most part, she is playing the game for selfish reasons, not for an moralistic or altruistic reasons. Her primary concern is her mother. The Americans cannot safely extract her mother and so ultimately she chooses the route which allows her to protect her mother best.
The physical violence is harsh and the sexual violence disturbing for a fifteen rated film and is at least thirty minutes too long. There is nothing titillating about the attempted rape scenes, the humiliating nudity or associated scenes featuring the matron and the trainee sparrows. Instead it is a brutal thriller. That having been said, the conclusion does pull out an unexpected yet welcomed twist.
