FROM RUSSIA WITH JLAW
It’s probably not surprising that what comes to mind watching Red
Sparrow, which stars Jennifer Lawrence as a former Bolshoi ballerina sent to “whore school” to learn how to properly seduce and secure
kompromat on foreign dignitaries, is the whole Trump “pee tape” rumor. Though it’s tempting to link this muted, overlong spy thriller to reports of an alleged salacious video said to reside in some Kremlin vault, waiting to be leaked to the public when the need arises, I won’t go there.
But that rumor begins to seem more plausible when you watch Lawrence, playing Dominika Egorova, retired from ballet after an unfortunate leg injury, learning the finer arts of BJs and nipple twisting from veteran perv instructor Charlotte Rampling.
That whole “training” montage is unsettling and entertaining at the same time: Dominika refuses to be, er, dominated by her male Russian co-students, even while taking Seduction 101 classes, and you just know her stubbornness will cause her problems during later missions.
She’s doing all of this because she wants to take care of her sickly mama (Joely Richardson), so when her Uncle Vladimirovich (Matthias Schoenaerts, worldwide runner-up in the Vladimir Putin Lookalike Contest) offers her a way to secure medical benefits for her mom, she agrees to join the elite “sparrows,” trained seductresses who help the Kremlin gain info and compromising material on political dupes and enemies.
It’s the Cold War all over again, and yes, it can’t help reminding us of the ways Putin’s Russia targets its enemies, by seeking out their weaknesses and pouncing (and if that doesn’t work, there’s always poison). “Every human being is a puzzle of need,” says Rampling’s instructor during final exams at whore school. Russia, we are told (and this movie is based on a novel by a former CIA guy), is masterful at exploiting weaknesses. Indeed, note the domino fall of fired, indicted or security-downgraded Trump White House insiders who have all had dubious associations with Russians.
This may all be true, but Dominika doesn’t do a whole lot of seducing here. She shares an apartment with another agent in Budapest, Marta, who is gathering information on a US senator’s assistant (played with amusing tics by Mary-Louise Parker). But her initial assignment — trying to switch cellphones while seducing a scumbag politician in a hotel room — goes badly awry when she nearly ends up getting raped.
Dominika’s dilemma parallels the second chance given to Joel Edgerton’s CIA agent Nate Nash, sent to Budapest after his cover is blown in Russia, to locate a mystery asset called Marble. Naturally, Dominika and Nate meet-cute (in a swimming pool, of all places), and naturally, they quickly come to some working arrangement (she finds herself Team USA, all of a sudden). But what’s missing here is any discernible chemistry between Lawrence and Edgerton. (My wife theorizes it’s because both actors have unusually small eyes.) JLaw has said was a chance for her to explore the “really sexual” nature of her character, and director Francis Lawrence doesn’t hesitate to put her in raw situations, even uncomfortably nude ones, but any sexual spark with her co-star is absent. There ain’t even a sex scene, which is probably a blessing. (She has more chemistry, arguably, with Uncle Vladimirovich.)
The chief manner in which Dominika “signals” her raw sexuality to targeted men is opening her legs in front of them, which she does often. It doesn’t seem all that esoteric a skill. (I feel obliged here to gently urge Ms. Lawrence to pick better scripts. She is a talented actress who connects better with audiences when she connects with her characters, usually the pluckier, underdog ones. Recent flops like Serena, Joy and Mother! suggest she’s moving too far from what brought her to the Hollywood dance in the first place. Stretching into foreign accents may not actually be her forte.)
In truth, Red Sparrow strives to be an intelligent spy thriller in the Tinker, Tailor,
Soldier, Spy vein, but its plot can’t help recalling other, more kinetic kickass female agent vehicles such as La Femme Nikita,
Salt (Angelina Jolie) and Atomic Blonde (Charlize Theron). Those thrillers may have been more cartoonish than the grim, humorless Red Sparrow, but they were also more fun. Lawrence, in particular, is saddled with some face-obscuring bangs and tresses, making her generally immobile expression all the more hard to read. Perhaps she’s conveying a spy who keeps her cards close to her chest, but it takes us much too long to learn what those cards are. She’s certainly committed to the physical demands of the role, but there’s not much meat here. Instead, there are numerous bloody and stomach-wrenching torture scenes that make us pine for the suave, cartoonish days of Goldfinger and
Dr. No. If this is what female empowerment looks like in Hollywood spy thrillers nowadays, I might have to switch to the more genial pleasures of Wonder Woman.