Red Sparrow is a 2018 thriller that puts a twist on the age-old spy genre with a female lead set deep inside the political Russian labyrinth.
THE STORY: After Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence), a renowned dancer at the Bolshoi, suffers a career-ending accident on stage, she soon faces eviction from her elite lifestyle and worse, the possibility of putting her sick mother into state-run care, a veritable death sentence. She turns to her uncle, who has approached her with a job that will secure her and her mother’s fates, that of seducing a powerful gangster. However, it’s not what it looks like, and soon Dominika is left with no choice, join Russian Intelligence as a “red sparrow” or be executed. So, yeah, sparrow it is.
Director: Francis Lawrence
Writers: Justin Haythe (screenplay ), Jason Matthews (book)
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts
THE RUNDOWN: The slow burn spy thriller with more taste for intrigue than action has long been a favorite of mine, with another Russian-set film called Gorky Park sitting comfortably near the top of my list. Here, director Francis Lawrence understands the power of a few simmering bubbles in setting up a larger boil, even if it never quite roils over as it feels like it should, filling up with a number of convoluted and gratuitous missteps that slightly strip away the film’s overall potential. Nevertheless, Jennifer Lawrence commits with abandon and makes following her harrowing journey into the dark well worth a look. She’s simply one of the best.
Some excellent direction in a few key scenes really help in packing some punch though it’s Jennifer Lawrence all the way, who creates and delivers a character with a lot of resonance.
It runs long and digs so deeply into the abusive and hard life of being a red sparrow, it gets a little numbing.
THAT MOMENT: She’s in like, waaaaay over her head. That’s what you’re thinking when poor Dominika takes to working with her ice cold uncle, though what choice does she have? None really. And it’s this dreadful feeling you get by the time this moment comes that is the best thing going for the movie, the film taking its time in getting here, spending a full twenty minutes of precious runtime in establishing the need for her to do so. It’s awesome.
It began with her on stage, in front of Moscow’s elite, she a crowned jewel of the ballet, a queen of the dance that she worked tirelessly to achieve. It comes crushing down in a blink though when here male partner leaps into the air … and then lands on her leg in the performance with a thunderous cringeworthy snap, shattering not only the bone, but also her future. While in recovery, she is almost immediately replaced by a younger rising star, yet that’s only one problem Dominika must wrestle. Seriously, things get dark.
Her mother (Joely Richardson) is quite ill and until now, lives in a grand apartment with her daughter, tended to by the best doctors in the city. However, with Dominika’s position in the ballet stripped away, the two are looking at a life of significantly less income, with her mother destined to die in a rat-infested facility with no hope of recovery. This is when Dominika’s smarmy uncle, Ivan Egorova (Matthias Schoenaerts), arrives with a timely offer, one that solves her problems but opens up a whole host of others. Talk about backed into a corner.
But first … there’s a rather significant bit before this job is offered, when Dominika reveals a darkness in her that would at first seem unlike what the delicate dancer is packed with. It involves her partner, the man who broke her leg and the new girl he has now taken a shine to. Healed from her surgery, learning of what’s transpired, Dominika quietly returns to the Bolshoi in the dead of night [bg_collapse view=”link-inline” color=”#e02828″ icon=”zoom” expand_text=”show spoiler” collapse_text=”close” ]and follows the pair into the women’s locker room and mercilessly beats them with her steel cane.[/bg_collapse]
Okay. Moving on. Uncle Egorova tasks Dominika with meeting an influential Russian gangster named Dimitry Ustinov (Kristof Konrad), a man who already knows and has shown interest in Dominika. Her job? Get close, and then switch his cell phone with a duplicate. Sounds easy enough. How she plans to do it is up to her, though the implication is pretty clear. Use her body. And not for dancing. Sex, I’m saying. Have sex with Ustinov.
Agreeing to this one job, she heads to the Hotel Andarja, where a lavish room awaits. Inside is an expensive and revealing dress (provided by her uncle, which is not at all creepy). She then prims up the face and hair, and saunters into the hotel restaurant, targeting Ustinov, who dines there every Friday. She makes sure she’s easy to see, though it’s not hard to miss her, her entrance a head turner. Ustinov gets a glance from the second floor and is drawn like a magnet, making his way down and sidling up to her at the bar, where he greets her by name and immediately tells her he doesn’t believe she’s here to meet a friend. He’s right.
Dominika, taking a sip of her drink to keep stable, confesses that she’s here for him, that she needs his help now that she can’t dance. It sets the hook. Along with his two burly bodyguards, they ascend to her room where she asks to be alone with him. He complies and then … well … things get real bad.
WHY IT MATTERS: The thing about a thriller like this, at least at its start, is how quickly we can become invested in the characters. We see Dominika in her ballerina costume skipping about the stage and get a quick sense of the incredible skill and sacrifice she made to the art, this intensity in her face signaling the presence of a powerful and determined woman. Few stare with a smoldering ache better than Jennifer Lawrence.
By the time we get to the hotel, we’ve witnessed in her an utter breakdown of everything she’s held dear, and worse, even more as the fate of her mother remains unclear. I love what Jennifer does in this scene. She plays Dominika with an edge but also a twist of fear that makes it clear she’s playing with a fire she knows could get right out of control in an instant. And it does.
Upstairs, her sexuality gets her an audience alone with Ustinov, her eye on the phone as she mentally tries to juggle how she can make the switch. Overwhelmed by the immediacy of what’s happening, she politely excuses herself to the bathroom, even giving the request a twinge of seduction, though once inside, collapses under the pressure and immediately vomits. It’s a terrifying moment.
Once back in the room, she realizes that Ustinov is a man of expectations, and his expectation for her is rather high. Demanding she remove her dress, he lures her close and then attacks, throwing her on the bed where he violent strips off her panties and rapes her, smothering her mouth with a powerful grip of his hand. It’s hard to watch. She struggles but can’t break free, and it seems she is in for the very worst when suddenly, behind him comes a figure in black, wearing a motorcycle helmet who leaps behind the big Russian, [bg_collapse view=”link-inline” color=”#c92828″ icon=”zoom” expand_text=”show spoiler” collapse_text=”close” ]and with a garrote, strangles him to bloody death[/bg_collapse].
The director, who worked with Jennifer on three of the Hunger Games films, borrows a bit from some classic filmmakers, the stoic, moody opening and buildup to this moment reminiscent of the work of Brian De Palma and Sydney Lumet, the subdued hyper-realism and oppressive weight of story filling this with great urgency. One of my favorite things about movies like this is watching how smartly the film convincingly ensnares it protagonist in its quicksand. Think of Alfred Hitchcock‘s North By Northwest to understand my point, where an innocent is thrust into deadly intrigue. Sure, Dominika might not have hands as clean as Roger Thornhill, but she’s nonetheless a victim of terrible personal tragedy and betrayal. As a movie fan, it’s great fun to see her step in the trap, and is reason why we pay to watch in the first place. How will she get out? This is the kind of stuff that gets me hooked.
The opening twenty-five minutes of Red Sparrow are sensational, some of the best in the genre really, the film patient and exhaustively detailed with short but biting dialogue surrounded by truly compelling imagery. While the film itself comes up a bit short, made a little disappointing after such a terrific start, Jennifer Lawrence is all you need to know when giving this any kind of recommendation. And this deadly game in a hotel room when a damaged ballerina faces the worst of choices is what to watch. It’s a great movie moment.