Director: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Jenifer Lawrence, Matthias Schoenaertsand, Joel Edgerton and Jeremy Irons
Red Sparrow is a spy movie but not the typical type. It goes beyond the usual with many disturbing scenes of violence, rape, torture, nudity and sex. It also has quite a long complex plot. It is for sure not for everyone.
The film in short is about a famous ballerina who has passion for her profession is forced to be a low-grade type spy because she was seen as having the potential to seduce a billionaire who had interest in her.
On one side the film is trying to be seen as an action thriller movie which is normally light and interesting but on another it wanted to add further depth to the ugliness and reality of such profession by going quite graphic. This has not served the movie at all and probably is the major fault in it.
I however, liked how the main character played by Jennifer Lawrence took her fate in her hand displaying real female power despite the unfortunate circumstances she was put in, and this is a nice shift in this type of films going inline with the new trend in Hollywood.
But because there seems to be insistence on having the light action part of the film, you feel the same confusion with her character. So, it is not a fault of Jennifer Lawrence since she did well in maintaining the glass/stone look on her face as required. But mainly the issue with how the character was written including how unconvincing the ballet dancing scenes were.
The other downsides are, there was very little chemistry between all the main characters including the dynamics between Dominique (Jenifer Lawrence) and her uncle (played by Matthias Schoenaertsand ) and between her and the American spy (Played by Joel Edgerton).
In addition, I had to force myself to ignore how biased the film is against Russia and the unnecessary length of the film.
There is also not much to mention about the performance of the rest of the cast as they all fall within average performance.
Nevertheless, having said all the above, the film kept me interested to know how the plot will end and while it was quite complex it plays out nicely in the end and somehow it compensates for all the faults mentioned above. I also liked the cinematography and the overall look and feel of the film.
It is correctly marked for 18+, and definitely not a light watch.
Zaineb Reviews 