Red Sparrow (2018) [Blu-ray]
Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline: The road to forgiveness begins with betrayal.

Dominika Egorova is many things. A devoted daughter determined to protect her mother at all costs. A prima ballerina whose ferocity has pushed her body and mind to the absolute limit. A master of seductive and manipulative combat. When she suffers a career-ending injury, Dominika and her mother are facing a bleak and uncertain future. That is why she finds herself manipulated into becoming the newest recruit for Sparrow School, a secret intelligence service that trains exceptional young people like her to use their bodies and minds as weapons. After enduring the perverse and sadistic training process, she emerges as the most dangerous Sparrow the program has ever produced. Dominika must now reconcile the person she was with the power she now commands, with her own life and everyone she cares about at risk, including an American CIA agent who tries to convince her he is the only person she can trust.

Storyline: A young Russian intelligence officer is assigned to seduce a first-tour CIA agent who handles the CIA's most sensitive penetration of Russian intelligence. The two young officers collide in a charged atmosphere of trade-craft, deception, and inevitably forbidden passion that threatens not just their lives but the lives of others as well.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, May 21, 2018 Is it a requirement that films featuring psychologically roiled ballerinas have titles with a color and a bird in them? Natalie Portman danced her way to an Academy Award in Black Swan a few years ago, and now comes Red Sparrow, though it's probably a good thing that star Jennifer Lawrence already has her own Oscar trophy since it's unlikely this film will garner her any kind of award season recognition. That's not to say Lawrence is anything less than effective (despite a somewhat clunky "Russian" accent), but Red Sparrow's tale of a legendary ballet star matriculating into counterintelligence may simply be too ludicrous for even Lawrence's significant talents to completely sell. The film has a really interesting opening sequence which quick cuts between two unfolding stories. One involves prima ballerina Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence), who is shown caring for her ailing mother before taking the stage with Moscow's iconic Bolshoi Ballet. While obviously concerned about her apparently very sick mother, Dominka also has to navigate the swirling waters of modern day Russia's political system, suffering through a pre-performance photo op with some kind of head honcho type named Dimitri Ustinov (Kristof Konrad), who isn't shy about getting a little handsy with the dancing star during the process. Dominika does ultimately take the stage, but she's soon hideously injured when her pas de deux partner apparently misjudges the distance of a leap and comes down squarely on one of Dominika's calves, completely fracturing her leg in what (with the help of a little CGI) looks like a career ending injury. Intercut with these developments are scenes of Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), a CIA operative working in Moscow who receives a coded transmission with a message to get something accomplished in Gorky Park that evening. Some kind of handoff does in fact occur there, but there are police in attendance and when things go a bit haywire, Nash has to beat a hasty exit, though it seems like the identity of his Russian contact may have been compromised in the process.

For a film that clocks in at well over two hours, there are some curious deficiencies in terms of exposition, motivation and just basic logic running through the story. Even the sociopolitical context of the film is a bit odd, seeming a lot more like the old Soviet Union than contemporary Russia (though some might argue that there's not that much difference, at least when it comes to spying, the subtext of the story). One of the first motivational elisions comes early in the film, in the wake of Dominika's devastating leg injury which has in fact ended her career. Her smarmy uncle Ivan Vladimirovich Egorov (Matthias Schoenaerts), a Russian intelligence operative, drops by the apartment housing Dominika and her mother Nina Egorova (Joely Richardson), one which (along with Nina's doctor visits) has been provided by the Bolshoi. Ivan kind of half threateningly reminds Dominika that the "free ride" in terms of rent and medical care for her mother will soon be coming to an end, and she might want to consider an alternate "career choice". Already the film is veering precariously close to ridiculousness, but in a kind of interesting segue Ivan also provides Dominika with proof that her little "accident" didn't happen by chance. And it's here that the film takes the first of several motivational (or at least reaction level) quantum leaps by having Dominika viciously attack those she feels were responsible for her injury. It suggests an almost feral quality to the character that has not been developed and which in fact isn't even supported by subsequent events. It seems designed directly to offer a quick snapshot of Dominika's more shall we say intense qualities while also serving as a too convenient way to get her further under the thumb of Ivan.

Two more elisions occur in quick succession, both tied directly to Dominika. The first question that occurred to me after her wreaking havoc on the people she considered responsible for her injury is "did no one report her to the police?", a question which may at least be gotten around by just assuming that Uncle Ivan handled everything in that regard. But then Ivan enlists Dominika to seduce Dimitri Ustinov, and that scene also ends in considerable carnage (after some frankly kind of shocking sexual content that seems to put the lie to Dominika's supposed feral qualities in a showdown), which again led me to wonder why none of the bystanders thought to finger Dominika as having been with the scion earlier. (Again, maybe good ol' Uncle Ivan handled things.) One way or the other, Dominika now finds herself in even more precarious straits than before, at which point she is more or less forced to undergo training as an undercover operative at a so-called Sparrow Academy. (There evidently was a Soviet sponsored school teaching women to seduce their way to intelligence information, which may raise some eyebrows of those following certain news stories these days.)

There are several vignettes at the training academy, as Dominika is mentored by a no nonsense woman known only as Matron (Charlotte Rampling, looking like a living poster straight out of the Soviet Era). Of course Dominika turns out to be a natural for this line of work (who woulda thought?), and soon enough she's predictably assigned to "work" on Nash since the Russian intelligence service wants to know who the mysterious contact Nash met with at Gorky Park is. (Anyone wondering who the "mole" in the Russian government is need only peruse the cast list and make a few pretty obvious assumptions.) There's a bit of psychological cat and mouse shenanigans that accrue as the story progresses, but it's all frequently overly labored and simply increasingly unbelievable, despite the game efforts of a committed cast.

The film does better in some brief but disturbing interstitial elements where the more basic action adventure aspects of the story are permitted short bursts of energy. Some of these scenes again seem to willfully bifurcate what we're supposed to think and/or feel about Dominika, but they at least give the film a bit of power that its otherwise talky bits never attain. One of the pull quotes Fox trumpets in its press materials accompanying this release touts how "empowering" Red Sparrow is, but if it indeed is, it's some of the strangest empowerment I've personally seen.

There's the core of an exciting and maybe even visceral story buried in Red Sparrow, but this film is simply too overstuffed for its own good (readers who have seen the film may have noticed I didn't even get into characters played by Jeremy Irons and Mary Louise Parker). The cast all offer good "movie star" performances, but the underlying plot conceit is kind of silly, and some of the violence and sexual aspects may actually shock some unprepared audience members. Fox has provided a disc with outstanding technical merits and some decent supplements for those considering a purchase.

[CSW] -3.9- This movie should get mixed reviews. It shows brutality, full frontal, rape, and state sponsored violence and torture. The Russians are a very stoic people and the Red Sparrow (Jennifer Lawrence) showed that stoicism properly. However American audiences are not accustomed to the stone faced stoicism of the Russian people because they are accustomed to seeing emotion in everything. If you are looking for an action thriller or tons of special effects or super heroes you should probably skip this movie. All of the high drama is internal in how the heroine sees and reacts differently than her compatriots and she does so stoically without showing her feelings or complaining about pain or hardship. She is at the heart of thing intrinsically doing what the "Sparrow School" was supposed to be teaching her to do. She also has to deftly manipulate and play highly trained professionals against one another. None of this has the Hollywood gloss that many have come to expect. It is a thinking person's suspense and intrigue movie that challenges you to keep up because you cannot read the emotions of the Red Sparrow the way you would in most Hollywood movies. I enjoyed the movie as much in hindsight as I did while being thoroughly entertained watching it.
[V5.0-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box


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