‘Red Sparrow’ review: Sinful amusement

Oggs Cruz

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‘Red Sparrow’ review: Sinful amusement

Murray Close

The film's true core is to break Dominika [Egorova], to make her appear to be almost incapable of romance, or at least to taint her every amorous movement with logical suspicions

In a sort of excuse for her cold, cruel and calculated methods, the Matron (Charlotte Rampling) – the headmistress of Russia’s spy academy – tells her students that the Cold War has not ended and that it just shattered into a thousand dangerous pieces.

Like brainwashed peons, the students, mostly good-looking and seemingly clever young men and women, simply accept their headmistress’ words like gospel truth. They are all on their way to become their motherland’s top secret agents, all processed from being the promising diamonds on the rough plucked from whatever melodramatic backstories they have to the stereotypical heartless operatives who fit the mold of what Russian spies are, at least from the point of view of America and its sentimental morality that Rampling’s stern headmistress belittles with vicious intensity.

Closer to now

Although Francis Lawrence’s Red Sparrow is clearly set in a time closer to now than when the Berlin Wall crumbled, it doesn’t feel like it wants to separate itself from the Cold War.

Its pervading mood makes it feel like it belongs to that era when the anonymity between the United States and Russia were more pronounced than presumed. Its tone and procedures are familiar but done with more psychological complexity in Thomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Spy (2011), surefooted tension in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies (2015), and boisterous attention to sexual politics in David Leitch’s Atomic Blonde (2017), all of which tinker with the idea of espionage between the world’s most dominant nations as a stage for political and personal power plays.

There is an intriguing aspect to its world view being indistinguishable from the period pieces that are distinctly set during the Cold War.

MISSION. Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is a trained spy for the Russians.

It almost feels like its calculated timelessness amidst all the depictions of current technology and mannerisms reveals a recurrence of Cold War-attitudes, especially in this era when Russia resurfaces in America no longer as the state substantially weakened by the fall of the Soviet Union but a rival of very surreptitious capabilities. Red Sparrow is at once an attempt to inject a forgotten sensual provocativeness to the duplicity and cross-border double-dealings the genre is famed for, and as a glossy reflection of the sprouting mistrust Trump-led America has for Putin-led Russia.

Whether or not it works in both endeavors is another thing altogether.

Deceit and cunning

For sure, Red Sparrow has both the sheen and all the cornerstones for a sweeping romance in a time of deceit and cunning.

The film opens with sequence that crosscuts events of its two main characters, perhaps in an effort to imbue a feeling of destiny or accord into the lives of the characters who are both in the prime of their respective careers but are suddenly thwarted by fate. Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is a gifted ballerina whose prospects for a bright future for herself and her mother are derailed by an accident during one of her performances. Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) is an American spy who is sent back to the United States after pulling off a stunt to nobly save the identity of his secret asset. (READ: ‘Red Sparrow’ director talks Jennifer Lawrence, seduction, and Russia)

The film however has other things in mind aside from love. In fact, the romance in the film is a weak link. It is lousily plotted and is more of a liability to the complicated psychology of Dominika’s decision. The film’s true core is to break Dominika, to make her appear to be almost incapable of romance, or at least to taint her every amorous movement with logical suspicions. Red Sparrow indulges in sex, torture, fraud, and wile, making it feel like the pleasures and spectacles it offers are intertwined with violence, abuse, and amorality Dominika has to withstand to get to her admittedly satisfying conclusion.

DEADLY GAME. Dominika Egorova is a ballerina before she was asked to be an agent during the Cold War.

All in all, Red Sparrow is problematic entertainment. Its world view is skewed and simplistic. Its source of amusement is rather sinful. – Rappler.com

 

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ Tirad Pass. Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema.

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