Red Sparrow

Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton,

Jeremy Irons, Matthias Schoenarts, 

Charlotte Rampling, Joely Richardson

"The Road to forgiveness begins with Betrayal"

Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is a prima ballerina with the famous Bolshoi Ballet. But her career ends when she suffers a major injury during a performance. Her uncle Vanya (Matthias Schoenarts), an intelligence officer forces her to be a recruit at the Sparrow School, a secret Russian intelligence service where the art of manipulation is ingrained. At first, she was reluctant but due to the special needs of her invalid mother, Dominika agrees. 

The school is run by a fierce matron (Charlotte Rampling) who pushes the recruits to their limits. Manipulated and coerced into unpleasant situations where they use their bodies as instruments of seduction, the training is quite brutal and pays a heavy toll on some of the recruits. But Dominika is a strong-willed person, her background in ballet is a plus, she strives and is soon assigned to her first 'assignment'. 

Things though get complicated when her next task involves luring a CIA agent, Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) to trust her with his knowledge about the intelligence and state security of both countries. This part gets complicated as there is a thin line on who is recruiting whom, is Dominika a double agent, who exactly is orchestrating the entire operation etcera etcera etcera. You know, spying and counter espionage tactics which can be quite murky for us, commoners.

Now here is the thing. Jennifer Lawrence with her 'fake' Russian accent is quite convincing in her role as the feisty Dominika. She portrays her character with the fortitude of a woman who has been through a lot but continues to strive amidst the adversities she encounters. The rest of the cast all do good in their respective roles. Special mention goes to Charlotte Rampling as the tough, no-nonsense trainer at the Sparrow School, she could melt ice with her piercing gaze. The setting is appropriate with the meanderings of a spy thriller, cold bleak weather adding to the whole espionage vibe.

I get the first part, the whole vicious training at the Sparrow school. I mean, from watching the gripping TV series, “The Americans”, I know these Russian spies are very well trained and can easily adapt to any situation which may arise. 

But the latter part where the two main leads interact with each other in a game of deceit, lies and manipulation, the plot becomes very complicated and not in a good way! Perhaps the writers wanted it that way, to add an aura of mystery or may be I was slow in comprehending this thriller. Either way, I have read other reviews where most of them agree that the plot was sorely lacking in more ways than one.

Having Jennifer Lawrence as its lead and she did well as Dominika was not enough. I conclude by saying, Red Sparrow had all the potential of being a good spy thriller, yet it failed to manipulate us into this web.