Red Sparrow
The easiest way to explain “Red Sparrow” as a film is the unauthorized origin story of Marvel’s Black Widow. I will not claim any knowledge of the book by Jason Matthews, but it feels like a story borne of the impulse to do a Black Widow story without the publishing muscle of the comic book giant behind it. The film by Francis Lawrence, with his “Hunger Games” franchise star, Jennifer Lawrence, would be an interesting enough spy thriller, however, if it weren’t a punishingly-long 140 minutes; unless you’re Bond, spies can’t really pull that running time off, and even then, it’s problematic. You cannot blame J-Law, though, as she gives it everything she can.
The female Lawrence stars as Dominika Egorova, a ballerina with the Bolshoi ballet whose brilliant dancing career is cut short when her partner accidentally injures her leg during a performance. She’s not the only one affected, however- her ill mother had taken care of through the ballet’s insurance, and now, their lives are both at risk. One day, she receives evidence that it may not have been an “accident,” exactly, and her actions put her on the radar of her uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts), who works in the Russian government’s intelligence field. He’s always had a particular eye on her, and sees her as useful beyond in the ballet, so he sends her to a school for “Sparrows,” spies trained to utilize their talents to disarm a target mentally, and gain their trust. That will come in handy when she is given an assignment to get close to a CIA agent (Joel Edgerton) whom is working with a mole in the Russian government.
If you remember the flashbacks of Black Widow’s training in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the best sequence in “Red Sparrow” will have you thinking about it in an R-rated form. Headed by Charlotte Rampling’s Matron, the “Sparrow School” Dominika is sent to is like a boot camp for sexual spies, as both men and women are taught to identify and exploit what a mark wants most to get something from them. This isn’t just a highlight because we see Lawrence naked, however- this is an impactful sequence because of how it breaks down Dominika, and gives us an idea of how smart and shrewd she can be when it comes to manipulation. Much of the rest of the film involves traditional spy movie cliches, and whether a scene works or not is dependent on who is in it (Jeremy Irons and Mary-Louise Parker stand out, in particular, among the supporting cast), but this sequence gives Lawrence a lot of red meat to play and she attacks it effectively while not allowing it to be exploitative. If Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale”) or Luc Besson (“Lucy”) had directed this film, I think they could have made it work, but Francis Lawrence (who does well with big-budget effects films like the “Hunger Games” sequels and “I Am Legend”) doesn’t have the directorial chops for this type of intricate storytelling. He does well enough to make it passable, but it’s not really entertaining beyond the early material with J-Law’s introduction to this world.
