'Red Sparrow'

Released: 1st March 2018 (UK)

Length: 140 Minutes

Certificate: 15

Director: Francis Lawrence

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Ciaran Hinds and Jeremy Irons

Following in the footsteps of Salt and Atomic Blonde, Red Sparrow is another foray into the tough-as-nails female sub-genre. This time, we’re venturing into thriller territory, with a former ballet dancer, pushed into weaponizing her body to eliminate targets and obtain vital information. While it had potential to place a darker subject matter front and centre, the result is very disappointing when compared to its contemporaries.

Red Sparrow follows Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence), a talented Russian ballet dancer whose career is cut short by a freak accident on stage. Faced with the prospect of her mother losing her health and dignity, she is pressed into joining by her uncle (played by Matthias Schoenaerts), a key member of the country’s secret service. Reluctantly, she agrees and soon encounters CIA agent Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), who has his own plans for her. This is a narrative with plenty of room for ambiguity and the testing of loyalties, but it’s undercut by poor pacing. At some points, it moves far too slowly, forgetting to build up the tension and weight on Lawrence’s character and at others you have moments of violence that come out of nowhere, making for a jarring transition as opposed to an unpredictable plot. In short, it runs on for too long, without enough depth to draw the viewer in. There are also many missed opportunities, most notably with the Sparrow school; we see glimpses of how both genders are broken down in their attitudes of privacy, conformity, and modesty to become weapons of the state. But because of the rushed training sequences at the end of the first act and a hand-waved modern context, it fails to build proper intrigue that would give the narrative more weight.

Characterisation in Red Sparrow ranges from mostly acceptable to incredibly underhanded, taking away from the tricky situations that permeate the narrative. Despite being saddled with limited material that swings between serious and intense emotions, Jennifer Lawrence still gives a worthy performance. The problem is that there’s very little opportunity for her to get across an internal struggle that comes with working for such an aggressive organisation; this would have made the audience root for her more. Charlotte Rampling is also good as the often-ruthless Matron of the Sparrow School, even if we don’t see enough of her controlling ways. Outside of these two performances however, just about every other performance feels incredibly underwhelming. We learn next to nothing about Nate Nash and when the film puts him alongside Dominika, it’s hard to care. The chemistry between the two of them is very poor and it certainly doesn’t help that the characters surrounding the duo are equally shallow. The CIA team assisting Nate feels far too basic to make an impression, Jeremy Irons has a rather awkward attempt at a Russian accent at some points, Ciaran Hinds is reduced to a middle-man behind a desk and we barely see enough of Joely Richardson’s Nina (Dominika’s mother) to build a proper bond between them. All these problems combined lead to a very unbalanced film all around.

Red Sparrow is at least fine to look at; the costume work is on point throughout, particularly in the way it delivers different statuses to various characters. Everything is well shot, with mostly close interiors and a drab colour palette used to highlight the closed nature of the Sparrow’s work. Red Sparrow’s sinister source material is placed up front, even if it swings wildly back and forth from a narrative standpoint; in fact, the film was really pushing an 18 rating at several points; these moments stick out from the other parts of the plot for their often-sadistic trappings, though not necessarily for the better. Because of the film’s weak plot and underdeveloped characters, the nastier moments stick out with reduced context to the main proceedings. The music uses some traditional Russian pieces, most notably in the opening ballet scenes, but it isn’t all that memorable, once again failing to create tension in the moments that sorely needed it.

Jennifer Lawrence gives her best, but she can’t make Red Sparrow amount to anything more than a cumbersome thriller with a few moments of brutality sprinkled throughout. While these do add a gritty, often brutal edge to the proceedings, the narrative and characters simply aren’t engaging enough to make a full impression.

Rating: 2.5/5 Stars (Mediocre)