Featured Blu-ray and DVD Review: Red Sparrow

May 21, 2018

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Red Sparrow

Red Sparrow is a spy thriller starring Jennifer Lawrence. It deals with the less sexy side of spying, focusing on how the women who are tasked with seducing their targets would have to live. That’s an interesting premise, but it is also one that could turn exploitative really easily. Does the film manage this balancing act? Or does it fall for cheap exploitation?

The Movie

The film begins with two parallel stories being told. Jennifer Lawrence stars as Dominika Egorova, a ballerina who is not only the lead dancer in her company, but also a favorite of Dmitri Ustinov, a high ranking member of the government. This is not a good thing, as it means she has to put up with unwanted advances. The night the movie begins ends in tragedy, as her dance partner, Konstantin, lands on her ankle after performing a jump, causing a career-ending injury. Worse still, she lives in an apartment owned by the ballet company and that company is also paying for her mother’s medical care, so soon the pair of them will be homeless and her mother will suffer. She is visited by her uncle, Ivan Egorov, who offers to help. He also gives her an envelope containing proof that her injury wasn’t an accident. Konstantin was having an affair with Sonya, another ballerina, and they conspired to injure Dominika, so Sonya could replace her. One good thing about needing a cane to walk is you always have a weapon when you need it. After Ivan hears about the outcome of Dominika’s attack, he suggests she could help him at his job, as he’s another high-ranking member of the government.

Meanwhile, Joel Edgerton plays Nathan Nash, an American spy working in Moscow. We see him get a coded message over the phone, which tells him where to meet his contact, code-named Marble, in Gorky Park. Unfortunately, he’s interrupted by the police and in an attempt to allow his contact to get away, he fires his gun into the ground and runs away. He’s quickly captured, blowing his cover and forcing him to return to the states, but at least his contact got away, but at a huge cost. It turns out the police in the park weren’t looking for spies, they were vice cops looking for drug deals and prostitution. Now they know something is up. We see Alexei Zyuganov, Ivan, and General Korchnoi discuss the incident. They learned that Nash is / was an undercover CIA agent, but while his contact was caught on the police camera, his face was not visible. Nash is reassigned back to Washington, but Nash insists Marble will only trust him, so he’s assigned to Bulgaria instead where he can reconnect with Marble.

One of the potential suspects for Marble is Dmitri Ustinov, which is where the two stories begin to intersect. Ivan goes to Dominika and tells her if she can “gain Dmitri’s trust”, he will make sure her mother will get to keep the doctors she has now, instead of being stuck in a state-run hospice. She agrees, but things go south very quickly. Ustinov is an oligarch and isn’t interested in seduction. He’s interested in abusing his power, and abusing women. Ivan saw this coming and sent in an operative to kill Ustinov when he starts to rape Dominika. Dominika is brought back to Ivan who gives her an option. Be killed so there’s no witnesses, or being an operative. With that, she begins her training to be a Sparrow under the leadership of Matron.

Dominika’s introduction into being an operative involved her getting raped, and her official training won’t be much better. It won’t be until after training that her story and Nash’s story meet up.

There’s a fine line between showing a woman overcoming obstacles and trauma, and using trauma as a way to degrade a female character for the viewer’s pleasure. I’m sure the filmmakers were aiming for the former, but I fear they hit the latter at least a couple of times and this kills what could otherwise have been a really good movie. There are still elements that absolutely work.

Jennifer Lawrence gives a powerhouse performance in the movie and I really like how the movie gives her agency and doesn’t just make her a prize for the male spy to win. Additionally, the plot is really engaging. The political intrigue elevates the film and I loved the mystery over the identity of Marble and both sides worked on opposite sides of the mystery. It’s not that often you see both sides of spy thriller trying to complete the mission at hand.

If the filmmakers had cut out the rapes and torture, it would have been a much better movie.

The Extras

Extras begin with an audio commentary track with the director, Francis Lawrence. There are also several featurettes, starting with A New Cold War: Origination and Adaptation, a 13-minute making of featurette. Agents Provocateurs: The Ensemble Cast is a 15-minute featurette, focusing on the cast. Tradecraft: Visual Authenticity spends 13 minutes looking at the crew, who have worked together many times in the past, and how that resulted in the look of the film. Heart of the Tempest: On Location is an 11-minute look at locations and production design. Welcome to Sparrow School: Ballet and Stunts is a 12-minute featurette on the training Jennifer Lawrence went through to learn to dance and fight. Finally there’s A Puzzle of Need: Post-Production, a 14-minute featurette on the post-production work, including the issues caused by the sensitive subject matter. Finally, there are 12 minutes of deleted scenes. That’s about 80 minutes of extras, which is a lot, even for a first-run release.

The Verdict

Red Sparrow is a movie with some amazing performances and an intriguing premise, but their attempts at being gritty and realistic crossed the line into exploitation too often for my tastes. If you disagree, the DVD, Blu-ray Combo Pack, or 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack have more than enough extras to be worth picking up.

Filed under: Video Review, Red Sparrow, Joel Edgerton, Ciaran Hinds, Jeremy Irons, Francis Lawrence, Jennifer Lawrence, Charlotte Rampling, Joely Richardson, Matthias Schoenaerts, Kristof Konrad, Sergei Polunin, Nicole O’Neill