The timing couldn\u2019t be better for \u201cRed Sparrow\u201d to sweep into theaters with its story of a Russian spy and an American spy trying to outwit one another. As one character in the thriller declares, \u201cthe Cold War never ended.\u201d No kidding.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Lawrence assumes a Russian accent to play Dominika Egorova, a star ballerina whose dancing career is cut short after she suffers a sickening injury onstage. She lives with her mother (Joely Richardson), an invalid who requires frequent monitoring, but Dominika\u2019s apartment and her mom\u2019s care are both paid for by the Bolshoi, which bows out after the injury. That means the young woman has to find a way to make money fast. In a moment of desperation, she agrees to help her leering uncle Vanya (Matthias Schoenaerts), a Soviet intelligence officer, on one mission.<\/p>\n
The assignment unexpectedly ends in an assassination. Since no witnesses outside the intelligence agency can be allowed to live, Dominika has a choice that\u2019s really no choice at all: Die or go to school to become a \u201csparrow.\u201d She chooses the latter before realizing that it\u2019s really, as she puts it, \u201cwhore school.\u201d On Day One she\u2019s ordered to strip in front of her classmates, which is hardly the worst of it. The curriculum of pornographic films plus more, well, hands-on activities, teaches the arts of seduction and ma\u00adnipu\u00adla\u00adtion, and Dominika excels despite loathing every second of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour body belongs to the state,\u201d the stern headmistress (Charlotte Rampling) informs her.<\/p>\n
And we haven\u2019t even gotten to the cat-and-mouse game yet. That\u2019s the chief problem with \u201cRed Sparrow.\u201d The film squeezes in so much backstory from the novel it\u2019s based on, by former CIA operative Jason Matthews, that it has to rush through the real conflict after Dominika is sent to Budapest and ordered to seduce American spy Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton). Her mission is to uncover the identity of a mole who\u2019s almost certainly a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer.<\/p>\n
By then, there\u2019s no time to develop the pair\u2019s relationship. What was a steamy battle of wits in the novel looks more like a chemistry-free charade onscreen. Instead of character development the audience gets torture galore, whether it\u2019s Dominika being doused with freezing water while naked and tied to a chair or a particularly sadistic character flaying someone alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cRed Sparrow\u201d has the nudity and sex of an erotic thriller and the stomach-churning gore of a slasher flick, but it also strives to be more than a genre movie. Despite stylish direction by Francis Lawrence and hints of deeper themes about female agency in a world dominated by callous men, the movie never really rises above pulp.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the top-notch cast of mostly British actors, including Jeremy Irons and Ciar\u00e1n Hinds, have varying degrees of success with the Russian accents, which is just one more distraction in a movie teeming with them. It\u2019s hard to overlook, for example, the sheer number of sexual assaults Dominika is subjected to or the way the camera ogles its female lead with the same discomfiting gaze as her perverted boss.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Lawrence still makes the most of a movie that doesn\u2019t always live up to her talents, although it does redeem itself somewhat with a satisfying conclusion. Whether it\u2019s worth sitting through graphic skin removal, though, will be a matter of personal preference.<\/p>\n
R.<\/b>\u2009At area theaters. Contains strong violence, torture, sexuality, coarse language and some graphic nudity. 138 minutes.<\/p>\n
Source: washingtonpost.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The timing couldn\u2019t be better for \u201cRed Sparrow\u201d to sweep into theaters with its story of a Russian spy and an American spy trying to outwit one another. As one character in the thriller declares, \u201cthe Cold War never ended.\u201d No kidding. Jennifer Lawrence assumes a Russian accent to play ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":77778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4545],"tags":[4733],"class_list":["post-77777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-jennifer-lawrence-en"],"acf":false,"yoast_head":"\n