While Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was the thinking person’s tale of espionage (and almost too clever and convoluted for its own good), Red Sparrow brings a more meat and potatoes style of espionage thriller to the screen.
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After an unfortunate accident ends Bolshoi ballerina Dominika Egorova’s career, she is recruited by Russia’s secret service agency to become a sparrow, a skilled undercover operative.
This involves sending her to State School 4, which teaches its recruits how to use sex to obtain secret information from Russia’s enemies.
Dominika tells her uncle it’s “whore school”. Unfortunately, her uncle, Vanya, is assistant directive of the secret police and the one who offered her the option of becoming a sparrow or being shot in the head. As he says at one point in the film, “Nice family I have.”
Dominika compromises her morals because it is essential that her invalid mother, Nina, continues to get primary health care from the state and to stay in her own home rather than going to a state-run boarding house.
Red Sparrow pits family against family and challenges its characters to choose loyalty to the state or commitment to family. The choice might seem easy and obvious until someone holds a pistol to your head, both figuratively and literally.
Dominika subsumes her individuality for the good of the state.
The film moves at a slow pace while we watch Dominika transform herself from prima ballerina to ultra-sophisticated espionage operative Katrina.
Matters become complicated when she encounters CIA agent Nate Nash. Each knows that the other is an agent for their respective governments and they divulge information with the purpose of achieving their mission without compromising their own government’s secrets.
It becomes more entangled when their relationship becomes sexual. As we watch, we are just as uncertain as Dominika and Nathan as to everyone’s motives and true emotions. The conclusion builds to a point of tension that unfolds in a number of twists.
Red Sparrow dwells on the psychology of spy versus spy engagement.
In all of this, there are several immensely high hurdles over which the audience must leap. You need to accept that a Bolshoi ballerina can become a super-spy and that both Dominika and Nathan, after suffering ferocious beatings and torture at the hands of a sadistic interrogation officer, can recover in a matter of days to get on with their business. The severity of the brutal techniques would incapacitate any human being for lengthy rehabilitation.
Another minor irritant is the mock Russian accents spoken by the Americana and Australian actors.
If you can overcome those elements, Red Sparrow will provide you with a solid dose of sexual tension, deception, sadistic torture and twists.
