I actually originally thought that this was the cinematic representation of a Russian ex-spy’s novel. However, it turned out it was coming from the other Cold War front. Red Sparrow is based on a novel written by the former CIA officer Jason Matthews and now that just makes so much more sense. The whole feature is filtered through a thick US lens.  Let’s take the terrible, nay non-existent, Soviet accents aside the story once again, like many others have tried before, sneakily aims to glorify the Americans as the heroes who despite being bullied by the big bad Russians do their best to save the girl. The girl ends up managing perfectly well on her own though, thank you very much.

Red Sparrow’s strongest feature is Dominika Egorova’s character. She’s a survivor but she doesn’t just bow down to rules to succeed, she creates her own. She’s deeply angry from everything that happens to her, as anyone else would be in her situation, and that anger drives her all the way through from her downfall to her rise. I like that it is shown in the feature because women are often seen as crazy if they act out in this way but without condoning what she does I’d say that her lashing out is somehow normalised and less gender-biased.

Dominika does learn how to control her emotions eventually – “the whore school” as she refers to the spy classes she takes probably mostly contributes to that and of course makes her absolutely irresistible to anyone, not just from the opposite sex. She also masters manipulating others too.

Visceral Lawrence is quite likable, she seems more authentic because that part of her personality often peaks through in her interviews. She is pretty good at doing the cold, soulless stare and boy does she look great in this. I’ve followed her career, but I think those naked scenes properly pushed her to work towards physical perfection. Her character starts as a Bolshoi ballerina and they are probably not the type of women to let themselves go, so that must have been a factor too.

Talking about hot bods – the nudity in the film is not gratuitous, it definitely serves a purpose and I bet as a very fortunate coincidence for the studio it would also be a major sales-driving force. Sorry to disappoint though, Jennifer does not recreate her now-infamous leaked photos. She certainly shows a lot of skin, but they surely pick the right angles for it all to still leave some stuff for your filthy imaginations 😉

Unlike other spy features Red Sparrow gives you raw and intense close-contact fight sequences rather than perfectly choreographed martial arts stunts. There are no slick gadgets and fancy cars that transform, not even that many guns. In general, all the violence looked quite real and that’s why often reviewers suggest that the faint-hearted should avoid it. I say – face it head-on! This film doesn’t lie to you. Violence does not look pretty and that’s how it should be. It should shock you, otherwise, there is a bigger problem.

The way the plot is often described is that a former ballerina sees something that she’s not meant to and then is forced to become a spy. I think a more accurate description would be: A former ballerina gets caught committing a crime and is given no option but to get involved in a complex game between the Russian and the US governments while she is being very much controlled by her perverted uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts).

Joel Edgerton plays Nate Nash – the typical CIA agent that Tom Cruise has most likely portrayed at least 10 times in his career at some point. He’s easily forgettable and doesn’t truly provide a strong counterpart to Lawrence’s Egorova. Perhaps he actually works as a tool to make her stand out even more. After all the story is all about her, so it might not be entirely his fault.

Despite all that Edgerton surely does a better accent than most of the others. If you didn’t know, he’s actually Aussie and in my books, he definitely passes for an American. That’s more than I could say for any of the US, UK and probably anything else besides actually Russian actors. They do such a bad job it might have been easier to give them all posh British accents normally used for all other period dramas no matter which country the characters originate from.

The lovely Jeremy Irons also makes an appearance and an appearance that it is. I don’t think we get enough of him. I suspect that’s to do with the way they developed the action and timeline but often the more obvious something is the better it gets hidden.

Joely Richardson is Egorova’s mother, but her character is so uninteresting she could have as well not been in the film it wouldn’t have made a big difference. People might say: Oh, wasn’t she what kept Dominika going and wasn’t she the main leverage they used against her in order to keep her working for them? I’m not convinced. I think J. Law’s character is the queen of self-preservation and she would have gotten over her mother’s death or that might have fueled her wrath even further. Either way, we don’t really need mommy dearest in the picture for a long time.

I didn’t realise I would have this much to say about Red Sparrow, but I guess I did. However, I think that’s enough for now. To wrap it up my conclusion would be: This film is quite polarising – it has some great characters and others not as much; it has unexpected twists but they are not mind-blowing and the acting isn’t spectacular but it’s not atrocious either. I believe it would have been more interesting if they broke out of the mold and took a different approach to tell about the power struggle between Russia and the USA. The feature could have also been snappier if it was shorter and much more intense. I did enjoy it nonetheless.